On AnCap, Intellectual Property Rights

The idea occurred to me in my Advanced Micro course last week, but I recently had a little discussion with some of the fellows over at Bureacrash, which focuses on the music industry, for what it’s worth. Anyways, for all you AnCaps out there, feel free to correct me if my understanding is less than accurate.

I fancy myself a libertarian, with some Anarcho-Capitalist tendencis. Regardless, there are probably some ideas in the AnCap mentality that really chap my ass. I say “some,” because I’m aware of at least one, and so there are probably more. The issue at hand is AnCap’s ideologically nihilistic opinion of “Intellectual Property,” which includes an awful lot of things that we currently take for granted: patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc., in short – any intangible “property.”

My understanding is, as outlined basically at the Bureacrash discussion, that “intellectual property … doesn’t actually exist independent of government restrictions,” and that “IP laws create an artificial scarcity … by controlling the supply of their product” in order to maximize revenue and profits.

The argument against this line of reasoning is manifold. For starters, the assumption that any restriction of output is necessarily harmful is not founded in reality. Any man is the sole arbiter of his decisions to work, hence, he is a monopolist as regards his potential for labor or intellect. Anything that a man produces, is his, and the decisions to be made ought to be his, and his along. If a man decides to make rocking chairs, but only at the rate of one per day, even though he is physically capable of making three daily – is this wrong, according to AnCap? If not, I fail to see the requisite logical leap that fundamentally changes the argument changes when “a song” is substituted for “rocking chair.”

Additionally, the idea that the product of one’s intellect is communal property is certainly not an idea built upon individual freedom. It seems to me, a latently socialist argument, and whether this borrows from the old continental Anarchist tradition is topic for another day (and someone better versed in AnCap than yours truly.) To argue, however, that the producer or inventor is not permitted to excercise control over his ideas, is to hold that individual, and hence, his ideas and labor and research and toil, subject to the interests of thos who have not produced, invented, researched, or toiled.

Now, there may be a very fine line between intangible goods (like music) and tangible goods, like automobiles, but then again, there may not be a line whatsoever – tangible goods are all founded on intangible ideas – you cannot make a wheel, let alone a computer chip, or a CD without ideas, and allowing anyone, anywhere, to poach the ideas of others discounts entirely the effort put forth in their development, and thus the creation of tangible goods. If one produces something, tangible or otherwise, I can think of no justification for which another may lay legitimate claim upon that product, save for mutually agreed upon terms of trade.

Moreover, it is an ideologically motivated argument against all things Government. This line of reasoning is fatally flawed, because it supposes that no such protections would develop in a world without governments, i.e., individuals and business will have no desire or recourse to protect their ideas from others. To this I’d argue, from the libertarian perspective, that not all government is bad. This is where I differ ideologically from the AnCaps – whereas the AnCaps view it as government coercion, or sanctioned abuse of power, I’d tend to see it more along the lines of the government protecting the natural rights of the individual against the collective claims of others, against whom he would otherwise be powerless. To a capitalist, it is a fate worse than death that commands his produce must be offered to anyone, at any time, without compensation; it is worse than government regulation of prices or products, within which, at least the capitalist can operate with a modicum of self-determination.

There you have it, the idea that IP ought to be abolished is socialist, it is anti-liberty, and it is logically unsound from a “government qua evil” point of view.

Again, if I’m misunderstanding this particular tenet of AnCap, please comment and I’ll be obliged to examine the issue further.