I don't think anyone actually wanted to learn about this, but it's stayed on my mind for being "an argument that's wrong and I can prove".
Background:
A while ago I made fun of a Facebook friend (call her D) for her "let them eat cake" cluelessness. This was during the 2018 (?) California wildfires when she made a big post saying how thankful she was that, in miserable air conditions, she could "still get her groceries" through delivery services. That prompted me (and, among others, another FB friend, "E") to drop our jaws and say, "Um, you don't care that you're just offloading all that suffering to poor workers that can't afford to just stay home, and will be breathing the lung-destroying air in your stead?"
(And, to be sure, there's the argument that someone total utility is increasing by virtue of how said workers still have the option to expose themselves to risks for money, and the counterargument about "well why have OSHA that workers can't opt out of ..." which is its own topic but didn't really appeal to me or E at the time.)
So far, so good.
But later, during the pandemic, it came out that E, for similar reasons, didn't feel comfortable just getting delivery so she could stay home when we were being asked/mandated to.
Those ... situations don't seem analogous at all to me, and I don't think someone should feel bad for ordering delivery during a pandemic like in an air quality emergency like wildfires. Here's why:
A) In a wildfire, you are shifting all of the hazard of the smoke onto the people who bring your deliviers.
B) But in a pandemic, moving to delivery reduces the hazard for everyone, including the delivery people.
In Kantian terms: If "everyone did it", then everyone would still benefit in case B). But in A), all the avoidance by the rich "D" personas would be matched by losses to those who still have to deliver.
To elaborate on B: the way a delivery service works, every worker involved has less Covid-spreading contact than than if everyone were shopping at a grocery store. The warehouses that set up the goods for delivery can, for their part, refactor and apply inexpensive countermeasures to reduce those worker's exposure. Furthermore, with everyone moving to delivery, you get economies of scale, allowing everyone to afford the delivery service.
So, to me, it didn't didn't seem like you were doing anyone a favor out of solidarity to keep getting your grocerys through in-person shopping.
A blog by Silas Barta
Showing posts with label libertarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label libertarianism. Show all posts
Sunday, August 15, 2021
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Tax interaction effects, and the libertarian rejection of user fees
Phew! Been a while, hasn't it?
I want to come back to the tax interaction effect (TIE) issue from previous posts, and go over what I think has been bothering me about the TIE-based argument against the carbon tax shift.
So, a high-speed review of why a carbon tax shift (CTS) is inefficient. The CTS, remember, involves a revenue-neutral reduction of taxes on capital (including land) and labor, replaced by a tax on carbon emissions -- specifically, those fuels that, when used, release carbon dioxide, in proportion to how much CO2 they release per unit.
And why could it be inefficient? Well, the harm of a tax increases faster than its rate. To have a revenue-neutral CTS, you have to "focus" the tax -- i.e. raise the same revenue from a smaller class of goods. This necessarily means a higher tax rate on the "focused" goods, and therefore higher induced inefficiencies (compared to the broader tax). When you further note that these taxes will, in effect, "stack on" to the existing labor and capital taxes, then the inefficiencies are even higher -- that's the TIE -- and could even swamp the environmental benefit from the emissions reduction."
But hold on. Those very same steps are a case against any correspondence between "who uses" and "who pays", whether or not the payment is a tax! That's because you can always point out how "concentrating costs" leads to disproportionate inefficiencies, even and especially for textbook "private goods".
That is, you could likewise say, "if people have to -- gasp! -- pay for their own cell phones, at $300/each, then that scares away all the people who can't pay $300 (after paying labor taxes, remember!), so you can an efficiency loss there. Plus, anyone who can steal the phone has a $300 incentive too, so people invest in ways to steal them, and you have to pay for countermeasures. Those go up quickly with the price of the good.
"Therefore, the government should just tax everyone to cover the cost, and then hand out the cell phones for free."
What's wrong with that argument? Well, a lot. So much that you probably already know the answer. It's for the very same reasons that many advocate user fees for any good that's excludable. Generally, whoever benefits should be the one to pay. ("Cuius lubido, eius sumptum." -- "Whose desire, his expense.")
As with those reasons in favor of user fees, you can make the exact same argument regarding the purported inefficiency of a CTS:
"Yes, you get inefficiencies every time you concentrate costs like that. And yes, they disproportionately stack with whatever taxes you already had. But you need the fee structure to work that way in order to align incentives. The one who uses the scarce resource -- whether a cell phone, or atmospheric dumping capacity -- should be the one to pay for it, as this leads them to economize on the use of that resource, and if possible, route around it. That remains doubly so when exempting them from the expense would lead to further penalization of every other class of socially-useful activity."
And that, I think, goes to the core of my original balking at the CTS/TIE argument.
I want to come back to the tax interaction effect (TIE) issue from previous posts, and go over what I think has been bothering me about the TIE-based argument against the carbon tax shift.
So, a high-speed review of why a carbon tax shift (CTS) is inefficient. The CTS, remember, involves a revenue-neutral reduction of taxes on capital (including land) and labor, replaced by a tax on carbon emissions -- specifically, those fuels that, when used, release carbon dioxide, in proportion to how much CO2 they release per unit.
Review of the argument
And why could it be inefficient? Well, the harm of a tax increases faster than its rate. To have a revenue-neutral CTS, you have to "focus" the tax -- i.e. raise the same revenue from a smaller class of goods. This necessarily means a higher tax rate on the "focused" goods, and therefore higher induced inefficiencies (compared to the broader tax). When you further note that these taxes will, in effect, "stack on" to the existing labor and capital taxes, then the inefficiencies are even higher -- that's the TIE -- and could even swamp the environmental benefit from the emissions reduction."
But hold on. Those very same steps are a case against any correspondence between "who uses" and "who pays", whether or not the payment is a tax! That's because you can always point out how "concentrating costs" leads to disproportionate inefficiencies, even and especially for textbook "private goods".
That is, you could likewise say, "if people have to -- gasp! -- pay for their own cell phones, at $300/each, then that scares away all the people who can't pay $300 (after paying labor taxes, remember!), so you can an efficiency loss there. Plus, anyone who can steal the phone has a $300 incentive too, so people invest in ways to steal them, and you have to pay for countermeasures. Those go up quickly with the price of the good.
"Therefore, the government should just tax everyone to cover the cost, and then hand out the cell phones for free."
Wait, that doesn't sound right ...
What's wrong with that argument? Well, a lot. So much that you probably already know the answer. It's for the very same reasons that many advocate user fees for any good that's excludable. Generally, whoever benefits should be the one to pay. ("Cuius lubido, eius sumptum." -- "Whose desire, his expense.")
As with those reasons in favor of user fees, you can make the exact same argument regarding the purported inefficiency of a CTS:
"Yes, you get inefficiencies every time you concentrate costs like that. And yes, they disproportionately stack with whatever taxes you already had. But you need the fee structure to work that way in order to align incentives. The one who uses the scarce resource -- whether a cell phone, or atmospheric dumping capacity -- should be the one to pay for it, as this leads them to economize on the use of that resource, and if possible, route around it. That remains doubly so when exempting them from the expense would lead to further penalization of every other class of socially-useful activity."
And that, I think, goes to the core of my original balking at the CTS/TIE argument.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Liberty vs efficiency: The real conflict
Liberty: Being free of constraints
Efficiency: Raising the state of the world as high as possible on everyone's preference ranking (or some aggregate measure thereof)
You might have heard of Amartya Sen's Liberal paradox, which purports to show that the two necessarily conflict. Of course, as I said a while back, it does no such thing; it only shows a problem with preventing people from waiving their liberties when they find it preferable to do so.
However, there is a real sense in which those two conflict, and it becomes most apparent in discussions of taxation, and how to make it better.
The conventional economist's view is that "The ideal tax system is the one that hurts efficiency the least."
But there's another view, exemplified by the Murphy article that I linked in my last post: "The ideal tax system is the one that's easiest to opt out of."
Naturally, these really do conflict. Why? Because generally speaking, if you want to levy a tax that merely transfers purchasing power to the government without also forcing people to bear other hardships, you have to do it by taxing goods with inelastic demand, like energy, as people will not respond to the tax by buying less of the good, which would indicate a reduction in efficiency.
But the harder a tax is to avoid, the harder it is to "opt-out" of!
So if you think it's good for people to be able to legally reduce government revenues by abstaining from a product at relatively little cost to themselves, then "economically efficient taxes" are no longer an unvarnished good, as they come at the direct expense of the goal of making it easier for people to change their behavior in a way that routes around taxation.
This, I think, is the true conflict between efficiency and liberty, as it doesn't hinge on confusing rights and obligations.
Efficiency: Raising the state of the world as high as possible on everyone's preference ranking (or some aggregate measure thereof)
You might have heard of Amartya Sen's Liberal paradox, which purports to show that the two necessarily conflict. Of course, as I said a while back, it does no such thing; it only shows a problem with preventing people from waiving their liberties when they find it preferable to do so.
However, there is a real sense in which those two conflict, and it becomes most apparent in discussions of taxation, and how to make it better.
The conventional economist's view is that "The ideal tax system is the one that hurts efficiency the least."
But there's another view, exemplified by the Murphy article that I linked in my last post: "The ideal tax system is the one that's easiest to opt out of."
Naturally, these really do conflict. Why? Because generally speaking, if you want to levy a tax that merely transfers purchasing power to the government without also forcing people to bear other hardships, you have to do it by taxing goods with inelastic demand, like energy, as people will not respond to the tax by buying less of the good, which would indicate a reduction in efficiency.
But the harder a tax is to avoid, the harder it is to "opt-out" of!
So if you think it's good for people to be able to legally reduce government revenues by abstaining from a product at relatively little cost to themselves, then "economically efficient taxes" are no longer an unvarnished good, as they come at the direct expense of the goal of making it easier for people to change their behavior in a way that routes around taxation.
This, I think, is the true conflict between efficiency and liberty, as it doesn't hinge on confusing rights and obligations.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Setting unilateral disarmament (obligations) straight
Apparently a Steve Landsburg post from a few months ago has been rediscovered and sparked a new blogosphere debate. The question: "If you favor higher taxes on a class of people that includes yourself, are you obligated, in the absence of the higher taxes, to make voluntary contributions to the government so as to push the world closer to your preferred one?"
The debate also considers (in greater depth) a weaker claim: "If you favor higher taxes on a class of people that includes yourself, you have a greater moral obligation to voluntarily pay (part of) such taxes regardless of whether they are enacted."
Bryan Caplan, Tyler Cowen, and Bob Murphy, all libertarians, weigh in and agree with that weaker claim. (They are listed in approximate decreasing order of confidence in the claim.) Karl Smith, one of those who does want higher taxes, disagrees.
My take is that, despite superficial dissimilarities, the question reduces to that of unilateral disarmament (UD). That is, if everyone (else) would be better of for each person who (metaphorically) disarms, but you would be much worse off if only you disarmed, should you disarm? I say that, you do not have such an obligation, either morally, or for logical consistency, though it would certainly be a noble act. So, I think Karl Smith is basically right (about the implied obligation -- obviously, not about taxes!).
Just as in UD/public goods/free rider cases, the decision to UD will, for lack of a better term, "weed out the meme pool" of people like you, effectively rewarding those who favor opposite policies (which you, by stipulation, regard as pernicious).
It is for the same reason that you should not pay Coasean extortioners: though ostensibly, it works toward your goals, it undermines them by rewarding the wrong people.
I think Douglas Hofstadter made the point very well in his Tale of Happiton, which discusses this dynamic, but in the (less relevant, IMHO) context of nuclear disarmament. He's set up a public goods type situation in which "writing postcards" (i.e. to advocate nuclear disarmament) benefits everyone, but has its costs paid purely by whoever writes them. Watch how he subtly describes the dynamics of what happens when one person takes it upon himself or herself to do the postcard writing. (Here, it's a girl named Andrea.)
Naturally, Hofstadter wrote this piece to encourage people to UD ("write postcards") in such a situation. But I think he's just as well shown that, in the absence of a collective agreement, your decision to unilaterally disarm is, well, spitting in the wind.
(A version of this post was made as a comment on Bob Murphy's blog.)
The debate also considers (in greater depth) a weaker claim: "If you favor higher taxes on a class of people that includes yourself, you have a greater moral obligation to voluntarily pay (part of) such taxes regardless of whether they are enacted."
Bryan Caplan, Tyler Cowen, and Bob Murphy, all libertarians, weigh in and agree with that weaker claim. (They are listed in approximate decreasing order of confidence in the claim.) Karl Smith, one of those who does want higher taxes, disagrees.
My take is that, despite superficial dissimilarities, the question reduces to that of unilateral disarmament (UD). That is, if everyone (else) would be better of for each person who (metaphorically) disarms, but you would be much worse off if only you disarmed, should you disarm? I say that, you do not have such an obligation, either morally, or for logical consistency, though it would certainly be a noble act. So, I think Karl Smith is basically right (about the implied obligation -- obviously, not about taxes!).
Just as in UD/public goods/free rider cases, the decision to UD will, for lack of a better term, "weed out the meme pool" of people like you, effectively rewarding those who favor opposite policies (which you, by stipulation, regard as pernicious).
It is for the same reason that you should not pay Coasean extortioners: though ostensibly, it works toward your goals, it undermines them by rewarding the wrong people.
I think Douglas Hofstadter made the point very well in his Tale of Happiton, which discusses this dynamic, but in the (less relevant, IMHO) context of nuclear disarmament. He's set up a public goods type situation in which "writing postcards" (i.e. to advocate nuclear disarmament) benefits everyone, but has its costs paid purely by whoever writes them. Watch how he subtly describes the dynamics of what happens when one person takes it upon himself or herself to do the postcard writing. (Here, it's a girl named Andrea.)
Andrea’s older sister’s boyfriend, Wayne, was a star halfback at Happiton High. One evening he was over and teased Andrea about her postcards. She asked him, “Why don’t you write any, Wayne?”.
“I’m out lifeguardin’ every day, and the rest of the time I got scrimmages – for the fall season.”
“But you could take some time out - just 15 minutes a day - and write a few postcards!” she argued. He just laughed and looked a little fidgety. “I don’t know, Andrea”, he said. “Anyway, me ‘n Ellen have got better things to do-huh, Ellen?” Ellen giggled and blushed a little. Then they ran out of the house and jumped into Wayne’s sports car to go bowling at the Happi-Bowl.
Naturally, Hofstadter wrote this piece to encourage people to UD ("write postcards") in such a situation. But I think he's just as well shown that, in the absence of a collective agreement, your decision to unilaterally disarm is, well, spitting in the wind.
(A version of this post was made as a comment on Bob Murphy's blog.)
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Setting Arrow's Impossibility Theorem Straight
Okay, by now, you might have noticed the econ blogosphere cooing over how awesome and insightful and useful the Arrow Impossibility Theorem is: Here, here, here, here, and here (in random order).
Um, to put it mildly ... no.
First, a summary of the theorem: let's say you want to convert individual preference rankings over outcomes into a social preference ranking that faithfully reflects these individual preferences as best as possible (i.e., create a voting system). You place a few "obvious" constraints on it that it voting system should meet, and it turns out -- you can't! Boo hoo, democracy sucks. (Well, in many senses, it does ... just not for this reason.)
This issue was discussed almost exactly one year ago on LessWrong. Long story short, the result has much less practical application than you might think. The requirements it asks of an aggregation system are far too strict. For one thing, the "determinism" requirement rules out the use of randomized tie-breakers. Keep in mind, there's always the possibility of some hopeless tangle involving a preference ordering like:
Person 1: A > B > C
Person 2: B > C > A
Person 3: C > A > B
Such preferences are completely intransitive, so no method of aggregation has any hope of being faithful. Normal people react to this by saying, "Okay, in the occasional pathological case, just use some tie-breaker that's not slanted in favor of any option -- in the end, it all averages out, so no problem". But Arrow's Theorem throws up its abstract arms and says, "Gosh, how hopeless. You can never satisfactorily aggregate preferences. Look how insightful I am!"
Needless to say, "We are not impressed."
It gets better though. "Black Belt Bayesian" makes the point that the "independence of irrelevant alternatives" (IIA) requirement is undesirable in the first place. (IIA means basically, if you remove some option, it should not change the aggregated ordering of the remaining options.) Why is it undesirable? Because so-called "irrelevant alternatives" aren't. Rather, they give evidence about the relative _strengths_ of preferences and therefore SHOULD affect the aggregated preference ordering!
Why was the econ blogosphere talking about Arrow's Theorem in the first place? Because someone had asked about underappreciated ideas in economics. Well, I think it's clear by now that this one doesn't suffer from a lack of deserved appreciation.
But what's even worse is that Amartya Sen's celebrated Liberal Paradox is viewed as a corrolary to the Arrow Theorem, and is just as ridiculous. It basically says you can't *both* respect people's rights *and* achieve Pareto optimality. Now, how do you imagine that works out? Well, you cheat by equating rights with obligations -- that is, you eliminate the possibility of people waiving a right when it's infringement would make everyone -- everyone -- weakly better off.
But who cares about that case? Not me. The very reason that rights allow for Pareto-optimality is because people can trade them as necessary when they find welfare-improving opportunities! If you equate "property rights in a specific apple" with "the obligation never to trade the apple away" ... well, you kinda throw a kink in all that.
As I said a year ago, if a transaction really is Pareto-efficient, then rights won't get in the way, because the relevant parties will waive the relevant rights! (Epic tongue-twister, too.)
Reassuringly, the folks on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum from me come to the same conclusion.
So are we set straight now?
Um, to put it mildly ... no.
First, a summary of the theorem: let's say you want to convert individual preference rankings over outcomes into a social preference ranking that faithfully reflects these individual preferences as best as possible (i.e., create a voting system). You place a few "obvious" constraints on it that it voting system should meet, and it turns out -- you can't! Boo hoo, democracy sucks. (Well, in many senses, it does ... just not for this reason.)
This issue was discussed almost exactly one year ago on LessWrong. Long story short, the result has much less practical application than you might think. The requirements it asks of an aggregation system are far too strict. For one thing, the "determinism" requirement rules out the use of randomized tie-breakers. Keep in mind, there's always the possibility of some hopeless tangle involving a preference ordering like:
Person 1: A > B > C
Person 2: B > C > A
Person 3: C > A > B
Such preferences are completely intransitive, so no method of aggregation has any hope of being faithful. Normal people react to this by saying, "Okay, in the occasional pathological case, just use some tie-breaker that's not slanted in favor of any option -- in the end, it all averages out, so no problem". But Arrow's Theorem throws up its abstract arms and says, "Gosh, how hopeless. You can never satisfactorily aggregate preferences. Look how insightful I am!"
Needless to say, "We are not impressed."
It gets better though. "Black Belt Bayesian" makes the point that the "independence of irrelevant alternatives" (IIA) requirement is undesirable in the first place. (IIA means basically, if you remove some option, it should not change the aggregated ordering of the remaining options.) Why is it undesirable? Because so-called "irrelevant alternatives" aren't. Rather, they give evidence about the relative _strengths_ of preferences and therefore SHOULD affect the aggregated preference ordering!
Why was the econ blogosphere talking about Arrow's Theorem in the first place? Because someone had asked about underappreciated ideas in economics. Well, I think it's clear by now that this one doesn't suffer from a lack of deserved appreciation.
But what's even worse is that Amartya Sen's celebrated Liberal Paradox is viewed as a corrolary to the Arrow Theorem, and is just as ridiculous. It basically says you can't *both* respect people's rights *and* achieve Pareto optimality. Now, how do you imagine that works out? Well, you cheat by equating rights with obligations -- that is, you eliminate the possibility of people waiving a right when it's infringement would make everyone -- everyone -- weakly better off.
But who cares about that case? Not me. The very reason that rights allow for Pareto-optimality is because people can trade them as necessary when they find welfare-improving opportunities! If you equate "property rights in a specific apple" with "the obligation never to trade the apple away" ... well, you kinda throw a kink in all that.
As I said a year ago, if a transaction really is Pareto-efficient, then rights won't get in the way, because the relevant parties will waive the relevant rights! (Epic tongue-twister, too.)
Reassuringly, the folks on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum from me come to the same conclusion.
So are we set straight now?
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Intellectual Property's Ungrateful Hitchhikers
I'm going to discuss an ethical and decision-theoretic intuition that underpins my support for intellectual property rights, and which seems to be absent, or unintuitive, among anti-IP libertarians. (See the discussion linked in yesterday's post for lots of good examples.)
But first let's consider a puzzle in decision theory. This one is known as Parfit's Hitchhiker and, as best I can tell, comes from Derek Parfit's book Reasons and Persons, though the term "hitchhiker" didn't come up in a search of the book.
It goes like this (well, my version does anyway): Assume you're lost in the desert, with nothing of value on you. You're approached by a superpowerful, superintelligent being we'll call Omega. It is willing to take you back to civilization and stabilize you -- but only if you will withdraw $5 from your bank account and give it to Omega once that's over with. (Yes, such a being might have reason to do this.) It has no enforcement mechanism for if you don't pay.
But here's the catch: Omega can scan you in detail and find out if you're really intending to give it the $5 when you're safe, rather than -- I don't know -- reasoning that, "Hey, I'm already safe, I've already got what I need and all, and you know, this Omega thing is powerful enough anyway, I think I'll just keep the $5." And if it finds that you wouldn't give it the money upon reaching safety (i.e. you don't have a decision theory that outputs "pay $5 to Omega" given that you are safe), then it just won't take you back and you can die in the desert.
At this point, a lot of you might be recoiling in horror: "What? Keep a measly five dollars when this thing saved my life? Are you ****in' nuts?" Yeah -- you're the people with the intuition I was referring to at the beginning -- the one that I have, and the anti-IP libertarians don't seem to. More about that in a minute.
Those of you who didn't recoil in horror may be thinking something like, "Whoa whoa whoa, I don't like dying. See, I would just make a contract -- or heck, even a simple promise -- that I will give Omega the $5. Since I feel honor-bound to abide by my promises, of course I would pay, and wouldn't have such diseased thoughts" as I referred to above. But I didn't make it that easy: note that Omega doesn't ask you anything and can't even receive your messages. Its decision is based entirely on what you would do, given that you know the details of the situation.
Here's the neat thing to notice: you will never find yourself in a position to be deciding whether to take that final step and give the Omega-like being $5 unless you adhere to a decision theory (or "ethic", "morals", etc.) that leads you to do things like "give Omega $5 for rescuing you at least in those cases where it rescued you conditional on expecting you to give it that $5" even when you already know what the Omega-like being has decided, and that decision is irreversible.
(I know, I know, I'm doubling up on the italics. Bear with me here.)
Conversely, all of the beings who come out alive have a decision theory (or ethic, etc.) which regards it as an optimal action (or an "action they should do", etc.) to pay the $5. Omega's already selected for them!
Now at this point, those of you who don't have the recoiling intuition I referred to, or are still worried I'll derive implications from it you don't like, may insist that this is a contrived scenario, with no application to real world -- you can't make your decisions based on what capricious, weird, superpowerful agents will do, so why change your decision theory on that reasoning?
And there is something to that belief: You don't want to become a "person who always jumps off the nearest cliff" just because there's some rare instance where it's a good idea.
But that's not what's going on here, is it? Omega makes its decision based upon what you would do, irrespective of what decision process led you to do it. So for purposes of this scenario, it simply doesn't matter whether you decide to pay that $5 because you:
- feel honor-bound to do so;
- feel so grateful to Omega that you think it deserves what it wanted from you;
- believe you would be punished with eternal hellfire if you didn't, and dislike hellfire;
- like to transfer money to Omega-like beings, just for the heck of it;
- or for any other reason.
So, then, is it normal for the world to decide how it treats you based on (a somewhat reliable assessment of) "what you would do"? Yes, it is, once you realize that we already have a term for "what you would do": it's called your "character" or "disposition" (or "decision theory" or "generating function").
Do people typically treat you differently based on estimations of your character? If you know where they don't, please let me know, so I can go there and let loose my sarcasm with impunity.
So, to wrap it up, what does Parfit's Hitchhiker have to do with intellectual property? Well:
- Omega represents the people who are deciding whether to produce difficult, satisfying intellectual works, conditional on whether we will respect certain exclusivity rights that have historically been promised them.
- The decision to rescue us is the decision to produce those intellectual works.
- The decision to pay the $5 represents the decision to continue to respect that exclusivity once it is produced "even though" they're "not scarce anymore", and we could choose otherwise.
The lesson: if you don't believe that the Omegas in your life "deserve", in an important sense, to be paid, you won't find yourself "rescued". We are where we are today because of our beliefs about what "hitchhikers" should do, and we miss out on rescues whenever we decide to become ungrateful hitchhikers. (Edit: that should probably be phrased as "... whenever we decide that it's right for hitchhikers to be ungrateful.")
(Note: this post was heavily influenced by Good and Real, Chapter 7, and by this article on Newcomb's problem.)
But first let's consider a puzzle in decision theory. This one is known as Parfit's Hitchhiker and, as best I can tell, comes from Derek Parfit's book Reasons and Persons, though the term "hitchhiker" didn't come up in a search of the book.
It goes like this (well, my version does anyway): Assume you're lost in the desert, with nothing of value on you. You're approached by a superpowerful, superintelligent being we'll call Omega. It is willing to take you back to civilization and stabilize you -- but only if you will withdraw $5 from your bank account and give it to Omega once that's over with. (Yes, such a being might have reason to do this.) It has no enforcement mechanism for if you don't pay.
But here's the catch: Omega can scan you in detail and find out if you're really intending to give it the $5 when you're safe, rather than -- I don't know -- reasoning that, "Hey, I'm already safe, I've already got what I need and all, and you know, this Omega thing is powerful enough anyway, I think I'll just keep the $5." And if it finds that you wouldn't give it the money upon reaching safety (i.e. you don't have a decision theory that outputs "pay $5 to Omega" given that you are safe), then it just won't take you back and you can die in the desert.
At this point, a lot of you might be recoiling in horror: "What? Keep a measly five dollars when this thing saved my life? Are you ****in' nuts?" Yeah -- you're the people with the intuition I was referring to at the beginning -- the one that I have, and the anti-IP libertarians don't seem to. More about that in a minute.
Those of you who didn't recoil in horror may be thinking something like, "Whoa whoa whoa, I don't like dying. See, I would just make a contract -- or heck, even a simple promise -- that I will give Omega the $5. Since I feel honor-bound to abide by my promises, of course I would pay, and wouldn't have such diseased thoughts" as I referred to above. But I didn't make it that easy: note that Omega doesn't ask you anything and can't even receive your messages. Its decision is based entirely on what you would do, given that you know the details of the situation.
Here's the neat thing to notice: you will never find yourself in a position to be deciding whether to take that final step and give the Omega-like being $5 unless you adhere to a decision theory (or "ethic", "morals", etc.) that leads you to do things like "give Omega $5 for rescuing you at least in those cases where it rescued you conditional on expecting you to give it that $5" even when you already know what the Omega-like being has decided, and that decision is irreversible.
(I know, I know, I'm doubling up on the italics. Bear with me here.)
Conversely, all of the beings who come out alive have a decision theory (or ethic, etc.) which regards it as an optimal action (or an "action they should do", etc.) to pay the $5. Omega's already selected for them!
Now at this point, those of you who don't have the recoiling intuition I referred to, or are still worried I'll derive implications from it you don't like, may insist that this is a contrived scenario, with no application to real world -- you can't make your decisions based on what capricious, weird, superpowerful agents will do, so why change your decision theory on that reasoning?
And there is something to that belief: You don't want to become a "person who always jumps off the nearest cliff" just because there's some rare instance where it's a good idea.
But that's not what's going on here, is it? Omega makes its decision based upon what you would do, irrespective of what decision process led you to do it. So for purposes of this scenario, it simply doesn't matter whether you decide to pay that $5 because you:
- feel honor-bound to do so;
- feel so grateful to Omega that you think it deserves what it wanted from you;
- believe you would be punished with eternal hellfire if you didn't, and dislike hellfire;
- like to transfer money to Omega-like beings, just for the heck of it;
- or for any other reason.
So, then, is it normal for the world to decide how it treats you based on (a somewhat reliable assessment of) "what you would do"? Yes, it is, once you realize that we already have a term for "what you would do": it's called your "character" or "disposition" (or "decision theory" or "generating function").
Do people typically treat you differently based on estimations of your character? If you know where they don't, please let me know, so I can go there and let loose my sarcasm with impunity.
So, to wrap it up, what does Parfit's Hitchhiker have to do with intellectual property? Well:
- Omega represents the people who are deciding whether to produce difficult, satisfying intellectual works, conditional on whether we will respect certain exclusivity rights that have historically been promised them.
- The decision to rescue us is the decision to produce those intellectual works.
- The decision to pay the $5 represents the decision to continue to respect that exclusivity once it is produced "even though" they're "not scarce anymore", and we could choose otherwise.
The lesson: if you don't believe that the Omegas in your life "deserve", in an important sense, to be paid, you won't find yourself "rescued". We are where we are today because of our beliefs about what "hitchhikers" should do, and we miss out on rescues whenever we decide to become ungrateful hitchhikers. (Edit: that should probably be phrased as "... whenever we decide that it's right for hitchhikers to be ungrateful.")
(Note: this post was heavily influenced by Good and Real, Chapter 7, and by this article on Newcomb's problem.)
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The IP debate heats up again!
Well, did you miss my posting, guys? I know one fellow who did. STS welcomes "Andras", a commenter on the Mises blog, who has single-handedly revived my older, ultra-arrogant post that presented the serious problems with libertarian anti-IP (intellectual property) theorizing. Apparently, the default setting on Blogspot is that posts don't expire, so they can always get more comments, and I saw Andras's comment there because I kept coming back to it to link that post. Note that in addition to the initial post, I summarize in a later comment, my three biggest problems with opposition to IP in the context of libertarianism. Take a gander!
Andras understandably dislikes the pro-IP groupthink (though he doesn't use that term specifically) on the Mises blog. But, there's reason to be happy. I've noticed a sharp change in the general form of IP discussions there. They used to be a few people against hordes of fanatical IP haters. But now, there is significantly more balance, and far more people are making reasoned refutations of the standard (but wrong) anti-IP arguments. Here's a short list from the past month:
Why People Don't Believe In Paying For Music. Hint: Its All About Deflation.
A Book That Changes Everything
Hayek on Patents and Copyrights
Hayek, IP, and Knowledge
Authors: Beware of Copyright
The Universals of IP Theorizing
Matsushita and the Patent
Does Innovation Require Property in Ideas?
Dangers of Copyright Exhibit
Dissecting Boldrin and Levine: An Alternate View of Intellectual Property
Two things to keep in mind: a) these aren't all the IP posts in the past month, and b) I'm linking these not to endorse the argument at the top, but to show the more numerous and well-reasoned criticisms the Mises blog gets now.
Andras understandably dislikes the pro-IP groupthink (though he doesn't use that term specifically) on the Mises blog. But, there's reason to be happy. I've noticed a sharp change in the general form of IP discussions there. They used to be a few people against hordes of fanatical IP haters. But now, there is significantly more balance, and far more people are making reasoned refutations of the standard (but wrong) anti-IP arguments. Here's a short list from the past month:
Why People Don't Believe In Paying For Music. Hint: Its All About Deflation.
A Book That Changes Everything
Hayek on Patents and Copyrights
Hayek, IP, and Knowledge
Authors: Beware of Copyright
The Universals of IP Theorizing
Matsushita and the Patent
Does Innovation Require Property in Ideas?
Dangers of Copyright Exhibit
Dissecting Boldrin and Levine: An Alternate View of Intellectual Property
Two things to keep in mind: a) these aren't all the IP posts in the past month, and b) I'm linking these not to endorse the argument at the top, but to show the more numerous and well-reasoned criticisms the Mises blog gets now.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Well, I guess I don't count as a libertarian anymore
Yesterday I was kicked off the private LibertarianForum Google Group and mailing list. The reason was that I had the audacity to remind other libertarians of the responsibility side of liberty (with respect to global warming), and for pointing out flaws in really stupid arguments against intellectual property (and, conversely, explaining how an IP-free system is vulnerable to Mises's economic calculation critique). The proverbial last straw was a discussion sparked by someone linking this TokyoTom post about Bob Murphy finally admitting, after being dragged kicking and screaming, to admit he misled readers in his op-ed, though of course he's not going to actually say it where any victims of his deception are going to see it.
The head of the list claimed that he was deluged with requests from people who were asking me to be removed, and who apparently lacked the guts and the brains to actually explain where my points were in error. I'm not going to name any names.[1]
Naturally, people are going to claim that, oh, it wasn't what I said, but my rudeness. This is ridiculous -- it's standard practice on the LibertarianForum list to use the exact same tone I did, as even my detractors readily admitted. A more plausible claim would be that the people there didn't like being uncomfortably reminded of the implications of their stated (though certainly not actual!) beliefs.
So why the title of this post then? I believe, after all, everything I did before. But look at it this way: time and time again, I see people nominally also "libertarian" reveal themselves to have been coming from completely different premises. I never imagined that I would see, for example, Bob Murphy take the attitude of, "Oh, did I destroy your land with my CO2 emissions? I got it! Here's the solution! Fix it your own damn self!" (Yeah, way to preach responsibility and universal adherence to basic morality there...)
There's only so many times I can see cases like that before the self-appellation "libertarian" obscures more than it clarifies.
So what to call myself now? One good option is Birchian, after Paul Birch (a former Anti-State Forum contributor), since I've been seeing my views more and more resemble his, especially in terms of focusing on whether the victims of one's actions have been adequately compensated.
Alternatively, I could -- gasp! -- call myself a mutualist as per the philosophy of Kevin Carson, my former nemesis. (As recently as July of this year he quipped that I couldn't grasp an argument even with velcro-covered mittens!) The reason for that term would again be because of my focus on the extent to which nominally "libertarian"-favored activities are in fact predicated on the state stepping in an exempting certain groups from having to actually bear its true cost.
Before inferring too much from this post, I ask that you heed this caution: There is a big difference between "Problem X is often overstated in an attempt to give politicians more power" and "Problem X doesn't exist." I certainly sympathize with those who have seen so many phony environmentalist rationalizations for statist measures that are thinly-veiled attempts to shut down markets, that they hear about Problem X and immediately view it as the former. But ask yourselves: has the tide turned to the point where it's more common to see anti-environmentalist arguments as thinly veiled attempts to shove onto other people, costs that the arguer should be bearing?
[1] Since a lot of you might be sketchy on terminology, a so-called "name" is a label used to refer to a specific instance of a proper noun. An example of a name might be Brad Edmonds or Max Chiz.
The head of the list claimed that he was deluged with requests from people who were asking me to be removed, and who apparently lacked the guts and the brains to actually explain where my points were in error. I'm not going to name any names.[1]
Naturally, people are going to claim that, oh, it wasn't what I said, but my rudeness. This is ridiculous -- it's standard practice on the LibertarianForum list to use the exact same tone I did, as even my detractors readily admitted. A more plausible claim would be that the people there didn't like being uncomfortably reminded of the implications of their stated (though certainly not actual!) beliefs.
So why the title of this post then? I believe, after all, everything I did before. But look at it this way: time and time again, I see people nominally also "libertarian" reveal themselves to have been coming from completely different premises. I never imagined that I would see, for example, Bob Murphy take the attitude of, "Oh, did I destroy your land with my CO2 emissions? I got it! Here's the solution! Fix it your own damn self!" (Yeah, way to preach responsibility and universal adherence to basic morality there...)
There's only so many times I can see cases like that before the self-appellation "libertarian" obscures more than it clarifies.
So what to call myself now? One good option is Birchian, after Paul Birch (a former Anti-State Forum contributor), since I've been seeing my views more and more resemble his, especially in terms of focusing on whether the victims of one's actions have been adequately compensated.
Alternatively, I could -- gasp! -- call myself a mutualist as per the philosophy of Kevin Carson, my former nemesis. (As recently as July of this year he quipped that I couldn't grasp an argument even with velcro-covered mittens!) The reason for that term would again be because of my focus on the extent to which nominally "libertarian"-favored activities are in fact predicated on the state stepping in an exempting certain groups from having to actually bear its true cost.
Before inferring too much from this post, I ask that you heed this caution: There is a big difference between "Problem X is often overstated in an attempt to give politicians more power" and "Problem X doesn't exist." I certainly sympathize with those who have seen so many phony environmentalist rationalizations for statist measures that are thinly-veiled attempts to shut down markets, that they hear about Problem X and immediately view it as the former. But ask yourselves: has the tide turned to the point where it's more common to see anti-environmentalist arguments as thinly veiled attempts to shove onto other people, costs that the arguer should be bearing?
[1] Since a lot of you might be sketchy on terminology, a so-called "name" is a label used to refer to a specific instance of a proper noun. An example of a name might be Brad Edmonds or Max Chiz.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Bob Murphy and Gene Callahan problem
If you've read their post about banning me, you may have by now a one-sided view of the dispute. I will explain here why I make so many posts on their blog that they find annoying. (some links missing and I apologize)
1) I have called out Bob on his deception of readers. As Bob admits here, his shameful op-ed was written to convince the public that carbon caps are necessarily stupid, a position he rejects. Now, when you are so misleading -- basically trivializing the suffering of hundreds of millions of people to justify why your gas should be cheaper -- yes, it will make you livid when someone points this out in front of others, and Bob's desire to ban me is a predictable manifestation this effect.
2) I regularly call out Gene on his selective invocation of rules of civility. Hey: having a civilzed discussion is great. But here's how Gene defines "civility":
Acceptable behavior:
-Lying about what someone believes (geo-engineering thread)
-Lying about the economics and morality of tradeable pollution caps (the op-ed above)
-Assuming the worst possible interpretation of any argument someone makes. (The discussion on the iMac and the "He must own the place" thread)
-Personal attacks, when Gene or Bob is making them. (apple thread and recent posts resulting in the ban consideration)
Non-acceptable behavior:
-Personal attacks, when Silas makes them.
-Asking for clarification (iMac thread)
-Suggesting that someone did in fact read a blog post just before submitting a full essay on it (in the case of Bryan Caplan's challenge)
-Mentioning that someone should have known something, given his job. (geo-engineering thread)
-Mentioning that someone know about the philosophy of others, given his job. (same)
Note here: Bob and Gene have repeatedly claimed that even when I do have a valid point, they dislike my posts because of the "tone". Well, I'll admit it: I do use a harsh tone, and I should. Their mistakes go well beyond the point where I can attribute it to mere stupidity or ignorance. They reflect a corrupted philosophy, one that says, "Whoa, you thought libertarians supported principled, private property rights? Hell no! We support cheap oil, first and foremost, even and especially if it permanently floods the residences of hundreds of millions of people. The right to slightly increased profits OBVIOUSLY supercedes the right not to have your homesteaded land permanently submerged."
When you have whored out your ideology, and so cheaply at that, a constant reminder from some, some ... nobody will put you into overdrive. It will cost you sleep. It will want you to shut up that voice in any way you can. Hence, the discussion of whether to ban me, which is where we are today.
I am appalled at the way libertarians have reacted to the global warming issue. While libertarians like Bob may have made valid cases why right now carbon caps can't be justified, in doing so, many of them have tipped their hands as to what philosophy they were really following the whole time -- and it's not pretty. If you were confused as to why I've been so harsh, you no longer are. And it is instances like these that give serious substantiation to the claims of those like Kevin Carson who say that many libertarians are more interested in shoving costs onto others than in seriously establishing principled private property rights.
In Bob's defense, he has written a paper on how a private law system would handle the current global warming evidence we've faced. I find it unacceptable (as I do Gene Callan's attempt to solve the economic calculation problem with protests), but we can save that for when it's publicly available. For now, I just want you to note Bob's prioritization: first, ridicule all attempts to define clear rights in the atmosphere. Then, much later, if ever, try to sort out what the libertarian position on atmospheric rights actually is. Oh, and support atmospheric socialism until a serious problem comes up.
1) I have called out Bob on his deception of readers. As Bob admits here, his shameful op-ed was written to convince the public that carbon caps are necessarily stupid, a position he rejects. Now, when you are so misleading -- basically trivializing the suffering of hundreds of millions of people to justify why your gas should be cheaper -- yes, it will make you livid when someone points this out in front of others, and Bob's desire to ban me is a predictable manifestation this effect.
2) I regularly call out Gene on his selective invocation of rules of civility. Hey: having a civilzed discussion is great. But here's how Gene defines "civility":
Acceptable behavior:
-Lying about what someone believes (geo-engineering thread)
-Lying about the economics and morality of tradeable pollution caps (the op-ed above)
-Assuming the worst possible interpretation of any argument someone makes. (The discussion on the iMac and the "He must own the place" thread)
-Personal attacks, when Gene or Bob is making them. (apple thread and recent posts resulting in the ban consideration)
Non-acceptable behavior:
-Personal attacks, when Silas makes them.
-Asking for clarification (iMac thread)
-Suggesting that someone did in fact read a blog post just before submitting a full essay on it (in the case of Bryan Caplan's challenge)
-Mentioning that someone should have known something, given his job. (geo-engineering thread)
-Mentioning that someone know about the philosophy of others, given his job. (same)
Note here: Bob and Gene have repeatedly claimed that even when I do have a valid point, they dislike my posts because of the "tone". Well, I'll admit it: I do use a harsh tone, and I should. Their mistakes go well beyond the point where I can attribute it to mere stupidity or ignorance. They reflect a corrupted philosophy, one that says, "Whoa, you thought libertarians supported principled, private property rights? Hell no! We support cheap oil, first and foremost, even and especially if it permanently floods the residences of hundreds of millions of people. The right to slightly increased profits OBVIOUSLY supercedes the right not to have your homesteaded land permanently submerged."
When you have whored out your ideology, and so cheaply at that, a constant reminder from some, some ... nobody will put you into overdrive. It will cost you sleep. It will want you to shut up that voice in any way you can. Hence, the discussion of whether to ban me, which is where we are today.
I am appalled at the way libertarians have reacted to the global warming issue. While libertarians like Bob may have made valid cases why right now carbon caps can't be justified, in doing so, many of them have tipped their hands as to what philosophy they were really following the whole time -- and it's not pretty. If you were confused as to why I've been so harsh, you no longer are. And it is instances like these that give serious substantiation to the claims of those like Kevin Carson who say that many libertarians are more interested in shoving costs onto others than in seriously establishing principled private property rights.
In Bob's defense, he has written a paper on how a private law system would handle the current global warming evidence we've faced. I find it unacceptable (as I do Gene Callan's attempt to solve the economic calculation problem with protests), but we can save that for when it's publicly available. For now, I just want you to note Bob's prioritization: first, ridicule all attempts to define clear rights in the atmosphere. Then, much later, if ever, try to sort out what the libertarian position on atmospheric rights actually is. Oh, and support atmospheric socialism until a serious problem comes up.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Hee hee hee! ur so clev4r!
Well, Bob Murphy bites the bullet. I argue (in an unproductive email exchange series) that government enforcement of atmospheric property rights, while not optimal, is just as tolerable as government's enforcement of its minarchist authority (police, courts, army), such as when it detains killers. In other words, where are the outraged libertarian articles about how government police will evict someone for failure to honor a mortgage?
Well, Bob took it as a sign to show off his look-smart-to-a-sophomore-girl case for legalizing murder
Right, assume the opposite of the current problem.
Bob must have missed, in any case, that I compared the carbon caps to the existence of a ban on murder, not the current enforcement methods. But no need to be rigorous when riding that bronco for all it's worth, eh?
And for anyone interested, I actually made the point Bob is responding to back in early June.
Quoting my comment at length:
***
So folks, if you want to know why I don't think Bob is taking this issue seriously, look no further than this. With one witty remark, he'll obviate about a month of discussion because of a premise assumption he never corrected when I made explicit, nor in any of the other discussion that implicitly depended on it.
His IER hit piece therefore was not really arguing, "Hey, politicians won't get the cap right because of political considerations." It was arguing:
"Government shouldn't do anything [so far so good--SB], and there's no point in even talking about why one government policy is better than another. If failure to define atmosphere rights (because politicians botch it and the free market is squelched) results in catastrophic damage to the earth's climate or even human existence ... so be it!"
I can understand why Bob had to obscure his real position for IER.
Ready to take the plunge and side with Bob? Just see if you can say this with a straight face:
Well, Bob took it as a sign to show off his look-smart-to-a-sophomore-girl case for legalizing murder
So imagine we're initially in a free society, and then you hear that the government is moving in to town in order to monopolize civil society's possible responses to murderers. Are you going to feel safe to walk the streets now? Are you confident that a serial killer will be stopped as quickly as humanly possible? [emphasis added]
Right, assume the opposite of the current problem.
Bob must have missed, in any case, that I compared the carbon caps to the existence of a ban on murder, not the current enforcement methods. But no need to be rigorous when riding that bronco for all it's worth, eh?
And for anyone interested, I actually made the point Bob is responding to back in early June.
Quoting my comment at length:
...While a valid complaint, I honestly don't see how it's different from government's enforcement of other rights. Most libertarians, for example, have no problem with government enforcing (at least some of the existing) land titles, excluding murderers from interaction with the rest of us, putting out fires, etc., at least until private alternatives are [established]. The libertarian position is more like, "Hey, that would be a lot more efficient if done by privately-run organizations," rather than "Putting out fires is immoral." We should likewise view enforcement of the atmospheric property rights: yes, government will botch it horribly, but it's preferable to the tragedy of commons resulting from ZERO property rights.
But I don't see anyone here following this chain of reasoning. All I see (here and on a mailing list) is poorly thought out schemes: oh, we should give anyone a veto over any harmful emission; or we should never allow any [veto of pollution].
I'm very interested in learning where I'm wrong, but if even Bob_Murphy can't grasp basic issues like why carbon emission capacity is scarce, I'm not sure anyone here is even prepared to make the point.
***
So folks, if you want to know why I don't think Bob is taking this issue seriously, look no further than this. With one witty remark, he'll obviate about a month of discussion because of a premise assumption he never corrected when I made explicit, nor in any of the other discussion that implicitly depended on it.
His IER hit piece therefore was not really arguing, "Hey, politicians won't get the cap right because of political considerations." It was arguing:
"Government shouldn't do anything [so far so good--SB], and there's no point in even talking about why one government policy is better than another. If failure to define atmosphere rights (because politicians botch it and the free market is squelched) results in catastrophic damage to the earth's climate or even human existence ... so be it!"
I can understand why Bob had to obscure his real position for IER.
Ready to take the plunge and side with Bob? Just see if you can say this with a straight face:
How could the government continue to prosecute anything else, if people could say, "C'mon, murder is legal, and yet very few people do it. It would wreck your credit score! Who the heck wants that?!"
Thursday, August 14, 2008
So why are libertarians such socialists about the atmosphere?
Why do libertarians seem to demand that there be private property, and well-defined, tradeable rights in each and every resource in existence ... except the atmosphere?
Sure, global warming alarmism could be complete B/S. Fine. But there could one day be an atmospheric global tort whose harm profile is isomorphic to that of greenhouse gas emission (as claimed by the climate science community). Shouldn't a consistent, coherent philosophy have a clear answer, directly implied from the principles its proponents claim to hold? So why does the only existing answer seem to be
Of course, there is the the Pigou Club, whose attitude is only a bit less excusable:
EDIT: some goofs.
Sure, global warming alarmism could be complete B/S. Fine. But there could one day be an atmospheric global tort whose harm profile is isomorphic to that of greenhouse gas emission (as claimed by the climate science community). Shouldn't a consistent, coherent philosophy have a clear answer, directly implied from the principles its proponents claim to hold? So why does the only existing answer seem to be
NEVER, NEVER should there be private property in atmosphere, and I will do whatever it takes to rationalize why this resource should forever remain an abused, unowned tragedy.
I have the right, the inalienable right, to cheap oil, and if you thought libertarianism was supposed to be about principled, private property rights, you can just wake up from your goddamn fantasy and get with the program!
Of course, there is the the Pigou Club, whose attitude is only a bit less excusable:
Are you getting victimized by greenhouse gases? Aww, you poor thing! Hey! Polluters! Give me money! Oh, what you lookin' at me like that for? Better move to high land, bro, you ain't gettin' no bling.
EDIT: some goofs.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The shortest, safest libertarian case for IP
Am I going too far with that claim? Nope. I've argued it many times and haven't seen any response that's even remotely plausible. Here goes:
***
Most libertarians have no problem seeing why property rights in radio waves (i.e. the exclusive right to emit at a certain frequency) are justified.
Next, notice that IP (intellectual property) rights have the exact same form. Just as spectrum rights allow exactly one entity to form his property into a specific pattern (such that it emits at a specific frequency), IP lets exactly one entity form his property into a specific pattern. They are rights to configurations of objects rather than objects as such.
It is true (as many, many will remind me) that to broadcast at the same frequency as someone else "interferes" (!) with their "signal" (!). However, your judgment that there is "interference" is itself an arbitrary value judgment about the merit of someone's intended use. In exactly the same way, copying someone's ideas can interfere with their intended use.
Remember, the ether does not somehow "want" to carry information. It is simply one positive attribute humans have been able to wring out of it; if people merely loved to blast radio waves for the heck of it, the conflict wouldn't arise. So the characterization as "interference" is solely a function of the uses people want to make of it.
Unless and until you can make a libertarian case why one desired use justifies exclusion rights for specific patterns and the other does not, the cases are perfectly parallel.
***
There, that's all there is to it. Don't let the length of this post confuse you; the entire case is self-contained between the asterisk lines. I want to now briefly review my history of making it.
If you look at this comment and the preceding, you see Stephan Kinsella make a seemingly innocuous but actually damning admission: that attempts to differentiate the cases of IP and radio waves reduce to (the very arbitrary decision of) what counts a "relevant use" for purposes of discerning property rights boundaries, a distinction mentioned nowhere in Kinsella's widely quoted case against IP.
The argument persuaded some participants to reluctantly bite the bullet and admit that they couldn't therefore support radio wave rights either. (Yikes!)
You're rightly skeptical to wonder why I'm not quoting a peer-reviewed, published exposition of this argument, and indeed many have suggested I flesh it out and submit it to a (very ungrateful) libertarian journal. While probably a worthwhile pursuit, if I have spare time, it kind of misses the point of journals: to get results, whether they be new, useful scientific laws, or evidence in favor of propositions, or establishment that something is or is not possible. If the above remark by Stephan Kinsella is the best response he, the eminent opponent of IP, can marshal, we already have a result. Wanting it in a journal article is putting the cart before the horse.
I've probed other intellectuals on this and found similar inability to refute -- I'm just posting the best response I've gotten.
Comments are greatly, greatly welcome. Unlike some other people who shall remain nameless[1], I want to see where I'm wrong.
[1] A name is a label intended to refer to a proper noun. An example of a name might be Stephan Kinsella or Bob Murphy.
***
Most libertarians have no problem seeing why property rights in radio waves (i.e. the exclusive right to emit at a certain frequency) are justified.
Next, notice that IP (intellectual property) rights have the exact same form. Just as spectrum rights allow exactly one entity to form his property into a specific pattern (such that it emits at a specific frequency), IP lets exactly one entity form his property into a specific pattern. They are rights to configurations of objects rather than objects as such.
It is true (as many, many will remind me) that to broadcast at the same frequency as someone else "interferes" (!) with their "signal" (!). However, your judgment that there is "interference" is itself an arbitrary value judgment about the merit of someone's intended use. In exactly the same way, copying someone's ideas can interfere with their intended use.
Remember, the ether does not somehow "want" to carry information. It is simply one positive attribute humans have been able to wring out of it; if people merely loved to blast radio waves for the heck of it, the conflict wouldn't arise. So the characterization as "interference" is solely a function of the uses people want to make of it.
Unless and until you can make a libertarian case why one desired use justifies exclusion rights for specific patterns and the other does not, the cases are perfectly parallel.
***
There, that's all there is to it. Don't let the length of this post confuse you; the entire case is self-contained between the asterisk lines. I want to now briefly review my history of making it.
If you look at this comment and the preceding, you see Stephan Kinsella make a seemingly innocuous but actually damning admission: that attempts to differentiate the cases of IP and radio waves reduce to (the very arbitrary decision of) what counts a "relevant use" for purposes of discerning property rights boundaries, a distinction mentioned nowhere in Kinsella's widely quoted case against IP.
The argument persuaded some participants to reluctantly bite the bullet and admit that they couldn't therefore support radio wave rights either. (Yikes!)
You're rightly skeptical to wonder why I'm not quoting a peer-reviewed, published exposition of this argument, and indeed many have suggested I flesh it out and submit it to a (very ungrateful) libertarian journal. While probably a worthwhile pursuit, if I have spare time, it kind of misses the point of journals: to get results, whether they be new, useful scientific laws, or evidence in favor of propositions, or establishment that something is or is not possible. If the above remark by Stephan Kinsella is the best response he, the eminent opponent of IP, can marshal, we already have a result. Wanting it in a journal article is putting the cart before the horse.
I've probed other intellectuals on this and found similar inability to refute -- I'm just posting the best response I've gotten.
Comments are greatly, greatly welcome. Unlike some other people who shall remain nameless[1], I want to see where I'm wrong.
[1] A name is a label intended to refer to a proper noun. An example of a name might be Stephan Kinsella or Bob Murphy.
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