Free Market supporters opposing Patent protection

[Rhea]

You are arguing against what you assume I believe.

Probably not, actually.

I think we agree.

 

[skepticalbip]

You are arguing against what you assume I believe.

Probably not, actually.

I think we agree.

It's always nice to run into fellow travelers.

Too much government control is as bad as too little government control. It's finding that happy medium that is a bitch.

 

[bilby]

Probably not, actually.

I think we agree.

It's always nice to run into fellow travelers.

Too much government control is as bad as too little government control. It's finding that happy medium that is a bitch.

^This.

People who have suffered under either extreme often wrongly assume that the opposite position would be better.

 

[Underseer]

Probably not, actually.

I think we agree.

It's always nice to run into fellow travelers.

Too much government control is as bad as too little government control. It's finding that happy medium that is a bitch.

Communism failed, you know. I know it's hard for people like you to believe, but it really did fail.

 

[dismal]

Well I started this thread because I had a question about something I thought was "free market" and I wanted to learn more about it. I appreciate the feedback. It appears that I was completely off-base and that free market people do NOT pursue a completely free market, only a partially free market. And they do not oppose all government intervention in business, only some of it.

Thank you for the clarification. Looks like hypocrisy to me, but I appreciate being helped to understand that it's a real thing.

Well, I'm sure it's nice for you to know these straw man people you have imagined who take this position you have imagined are hypocrites.

You should certainly feel smug and superior to these people who don't seem to exist.

 

[NobleSavage]

The company I'm a partner in has a patent on a building block. Would it stop a multimillion dollar company from ripping us off? No. As our patent attorney said, "patent litigation is the sport of kings."

 

[NobleSavage]

Regarding software patents read this http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/symposium-go-ask-alice-what-can-you-patent-after-alice-v-cls-bank/

While there are terms in the law like "non-obvious" and "novel" there really are no bright line rules. You can try and look at what preceding case law says on "novel" but soon you will be swimming in shit worse than theology. At the end of the day it's boils down to the patent drafters skill in the art and what the patent examiner had for lunch.

 

[Rhea]

Well I started this thread because I had a question about something I thought was "free market" and I wanted to learn more about it. I appreciate the feedback. It appears that I was completely off-base and that free market people do NOT pursue a completely free market, only a partially free market. And they do not oppose all government intervention in business, only some of it.

Thank you for the clarification. Looks like hypocrisy to me, but I appreciate being helped to understand that it's a real thing.

Well, I'm sure it's nice for you to know these straw man people you have imagined who take this position you have imagined are hypocrites.

You should certainly feel smug and superior to these people who don't seem to exist.

It is true - it looks like it was a straw man to think that people who support "free market" actually thought "free" in the free market. I admit, I was wrong. My bad. Straw now going into the fire to heat my house.

 

[dismal]

Well, I'm sure it's nice for you to know these straw man people you have imagined who take this position you have imagined are hypocrites.

You should certainly feel smug and superior to these people who don't seem to exist.

It is true - it looks like it was a straw man to think that people who support "free market" actually thought "free" in the free market. I admit, I was wrong. My bad. Straw now going into the fire to heat my house.

Do you have a link to these people you are talking about?

 

[Rhea]

Do you have a link to these people you are talking about?

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/freemarket.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
http://fee.org/the_freeman/detail/free-markets-the-rule-of-law-and-classical-liberalism
http://www.libertylawsite.org/book-review/free-market-economy-v-free-market-society/
http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=782


But mostly, it was just my understanding of the word "free" being used in "free markets" which was, apparently, deeply flawed.

 

[dismal]

Do you have a link to these people you are talking about?

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/freemarket.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
http://fee.org/the_freeman/detail/free-markets-the-rule-of-law-and-classical-liberalism
http://www.libertylawsite.org/book-review/free-market-economy-v-free-market-society/
http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=782


But mostly, it was just my understanding of the word "free" being used in "free markets" which was, apparently, deeply flawed.

I am at a loss to understand where in these links you imagine someone is advocating a system where the government is not involved in markets.

This guy clearly seems to be strongly advocating a "rule of law" which I think generally involves government.

Leonard Read, the founder and first president of FEE, once penned a book with the title Anything That’s Peaceful.25 In it he said that if we are to regain the liberty that we have lost, and the fully and consistently applied rule of law that once was the guardian of our liberty and freedom of enterprise, we must reawaken in our fellow citizens an understanding of what liberty, the rule of law, and individual self-responsibility mean

This guy seems to acknowledge a rile for both the market and the state but worries both can become too big. If your example of a free market purist is worrying that markets might get too big there may be a problem.

Our problem is that the dominant ideologies and political parties today favor expanding either the market or the state into too many domains of life. And this becomes a mutually reinforcing problem: as the market grows, voluntary associations, civil society, the family, and other non-market communities recede; as they recede, there arises more of a need for and less of a check on the growth of markets. Likewise, as the state provides more social services, voluntary associations, civil society, the family, and other non-governmental communities recede; as they recede, there arises more of a need for and less of a check on the growth of government. Indeed, the growth of both the market and the state go hand in hand as they then provide favors to each other (crony capitalism and the best politics money can buy). And in the process, civil society is crowded out. Rebuilding non-market non-state institutions of civil society is the task going forward.

This one seems to be about exploring what regulations are and aren't productive. If the answer is "always and everywhere none" it seems odd they would describe it as nuanced. Or that they could make a book out of it with different perspectives.

What does it take to have a “free” market? Do we need property and contract law? What about antitrust law? Are corporations, which limit their shareholders’ liability toward third parties, consistent with a free market? Are they necessary? The Legal Foundations of Free Markets, a fascinating collection of nine substantive chapters and an introduction that thoroughly canvases the issues, by some of the brightest legal thinkers who take markets seriously, raises such questions and provides careful, nuanced answers that are likely to stir debate.

I thought Peter Leeson might finally be your salvation of someone who doesn't think laws are necessary in a market but a little exploration into his work seems to imply laws are so critical to the function of markets that people spontaneously develop them in the absence of a state:

The idea of the invisible hook is that pirates, though they’re criminals, are still driven by their self-interest. So they were driven to build systems of government and social structures that allowed them to better pursue their criminal ends.... The reason that the criminality is driving these structures is because they can’t rely on the state to provide those structures for them. So pirates, more than anyone else, needed to figure out some system of law and order to make it possible for them to remain together long enough to be successful at stealing.[13]

 

[Rhea]

Some of the quotes in each article are saying yes government is needed and some are not. Most of the articles were comparisons, and you have picked one of the sides to quote.

But again, as I said, I was fundamentally mistaken when I interpreted "free" to mean "free" and I acknowledge that I now understand NONE of the free marketers actually want an actual free market. They define "free market" as "regulated to corporate benefit and not one iota more market." Which is fine, I just did not think they were using "free" in a way that does not mean "free." I was in error.

 

[dismal]

Some of the quotes in each article are saying yes government is needed and some are not. Most of the articles were comparisons, and you have picked one of the sides to quote.

But again, as I said, I was fundamentally mistaken when I interpreted "free" to mean "free" and I acknowledge that I now understand NONE of the free marketers actually want an actual free market. They define "free market" as "regulated to corporate benefit and not one iota more market." Which is fine, I just did not think they were using "free" in a way that does not mean "free." I was in error.

Nobody is stopping you from providing the quotes you feel best illustrate your point.

And I'm now confused by the fact you concede you were in error while providing links that you are arguing prove your point.

 

[skepticalbip]

Some of the quotes in each article are saying yes government is needed and some are not. Most of the articles were comparisons, and you have picked one of the sides to quote.

But again, as I said, I was fundamentally mistaken when I interpreted "free" to mean "free" and I acknowledge that I now understand NONE of the free marketers actually want an actual free market. They define "free market" as "regulated to corporate benefit and not one iota more market." Which is fine, I just did not think they were using "free" in a way that does not mean "free." I was in error.

Nobody is stopping you from providing the quotes you feel best illustrate your point.

And I'm now confused by the fact you concede you were in error while providing links that you are arguing prove your point.

The links Rhea provided were what the original misunderstanding of what the "free marketers" were saying came from. It seems that Rhea now understands what "free marketers" are saying (what they mean by "free") and apparently agrees.

 

[Rhea]

The links Rhea provided were what the original misunderstanding of what the "free marketers" were saying came from. It seems that Rhea now understands what "free marketers" are saying (what they mean by "free") and apparently agrees.

And I thought saying it four times was sufficient! LOL Thanks for the translation. Hope it helps him this time!

 

[SimpleDon]

Probably not, actually.

I think we agree.

It's always nice to run into fellow travelers.

Too much government control is as bad as too little government control. It's finding that happy medium that is a bitch.

So you believe in a Goldilocks's government, not too much, not too little, a government that controls the economy just right.

Putting aside the use of the word "control," the government doesn't so much control the economy as they define it, I don't see how anyone could disagree. But the devil is in the details, finding that happy medium.

If we are going to talk in sweeping generalities the opposite has to be true, that there is a happy medium in the things that private enterprise can do. That there are limits to what the for profit model can be effective doing.

That those things that the private enterprise can't do well are not only best done by the government, the government is the only entity that can do them.

That essentially the private enterprise system is at its best at providing solutions to defined set of simple problems, determining the allocation of resources among competing uses. And it does this with the simple mechanism of self-interest, in a word, greed. However, the problems that this mechanism can't handle well, fall to the government to solve.

For example, we have discovered that the private enterprise system doesn't do very well in the question of who should live and who should die. The profit motive is a poor way of distributing health care. Our society has a judgement that life is important and that it shouldn't depend on the usefulness of a person whether they live or die.

And we know that the very things that make capitalism work so well as an economic system, innovation and the rewarding of risk taking, also are the reasons that the system must be policed and limited in scope. There has to be an adult in the room and that is government.

 

[SimpleDon]

It's always nice to run into fellow travelers.

Too much government control is as bad as too little government control. It's finding that happy medium that is a bitch.

^This.

People who have suffered under either extreme often wrongly assume that the opposite position would be better.

'Never go to excess, let moderation be your guide." Cicero.

 

[skepticalbip]

It's always nice to run into fellow travelers.

Too much government control is as bad as too little government control. It's finding that happy medium that is a bitch.

So you believe in a Goldilocks's government, not too much, not too little, a government that controls the economy just right.

Putting aside the use of the word "control," the government doesn't so much control the economy as they define it, I don't see how anyone could disagree. But the devil is in the details, finding that happy medium.

I could disagree but maybe that is just a different understanding of what you mean by "define it". In a "free" economy people engage in whatever economic activities they wish (within limits). The government's role is to set those limits. The government's place is to stop fraud or force, to insure that no one's business produces physical harm to others, that property rights are protected, to insure that competetors don't engage in price fixing, to insure that no one industry gains a monopoly position. There are likely a few others but these are just off the top of my head.

If we are going to talk in sweeping generalities the opposite has to be true, that there is a happy medium in the things that private enterprise can do. That there are limits to what the for profit model can be effective doing.

That those things that the private enterprise can't do well are not only best done by the government, the government is the only entity that can do them.

That essentially the private enterprise system is at its best at providing solutions to defined set of simple problems, determining the allocation of resources among competing uses. And it does this with the simple mechanism of self-interest, in a word, greed. However, the problems that this mechanism can't handle well, fall to the government to solve.

For example, we have discovered that the private enterprise system doesn't do very well in the question of who should live and who should die. The profit motive is a poor way of distributing health care. Our society has a judgement that life is important and that it shouldn't depend on the usefulness of a person whether they live or die.

And we know that the very things that make capitalism work so well as an economic system, innovation and the rewarding of risk taking, also are the reasons that the system must be policed and limited in scope. There has to be an adult in the room and that is government.

Absolutely there are things that government does better. National defense, major highways, police departments, etc. However, there is food production and distribution, housing, daily services, etc. that government would suck at. At one time it was believed that only government could manage our telephone system so we had a government supported and controlled monopoly that had no innovation for many, many decades. Finally competition was allowed and we got other companies entering the market to compete. This resulted in many designs in the telephone, touch tone dialing, and now cell phones. Plus the cost of making a call has dramatically dropped. Making a "long distance" call was once a relatively expensive thing to do.

 

[SimpleDon]

Well I started this thread because I had a question about something I thought was "free market" and I wanted to learn more about it. I appreciate the feedback. It appears that I was completely off-base and that free market people do NOT pursue a completely free market, only a partially free market. And they do not oppose all government intervention in business, only some of it.

Thank you for the clarification. Looks like hypocrisy to me, but I appreciate being helped to understand that it's a real thing.

Well, I'm sure it's nice for you to know these straw man people you have imagined who take this position you have imagined are hypocrites.

You should certainly feel smug and superior to these people who don't seem to exist.

You are saying that there isn't anyone who believes that patents and other intellectual properties shouldn't exist? That they are an excess of government?

Why would Rhea have to construct a strawman when we have the libertarians to mock? And they are free market enthusiasts, wouldn't you agree? Try this link comparing the views of four of the foundation theorists of the modern corporate sponsored libertarianism. Rothbard, Spooner, Tucker and Rand. Rothbard and Tucker seem to oppose intellectual property rights.

Admittedly they don't exist, they are dead. But they do have adherents in the libertarian movement.

 

[dismal]

Well, I'm sure it's nice for you to know these straw man people you have imagined who take this position you have imagined are hypocrites.

You should certainly feel smug and superior to these people who don't seem to exist.

You are saying that there isn't anyone who believes that patents and other intellectual properties shouldn't exist? That they are an excess of government?

Why would Rhea have to construct a strawman when we have the libertarians to mock? And they are free market enthusiasts, wouldn't you agree? Try this link comparing the views of four of the foundation theorists of the modern corporate sponsored libertarianism. Rothbard, Spooner, Tucker and Rand. Rothbard and Tucker seem to oppose intellectual property rights.

Admittedly they don't exist, they are dead. But they do have adherents in the libertarian movement.

You could read the thread. The answers to your questions are there.

Hint: I am the one saying the things I said. If I didn't say it, then it may be a mistake to conclude I am saying it.