I really liked Charles Koch‘s March 1 editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

But why won’t he walk his own talk, as the Public Campaign Action Fund has noted? And why can’t we get a libertarian funder who is willing to walk away from government-granted favors, and find ways to grow a voluntary and responsible society?

I copy below their own March 1 challenge to Mr. Koch (emphasis added):

Watchdog on Charles Koch Op-ed: The Hypocrisy is Palpable

Washington, D.C.—Public Campaign Action Fund released background information today in response to Charles Koch’s Wall Street Journal op-ed bemoaning “crony capitalism” and “special favors.”

“Charles Koch’s op-ed today should be in The Onion, not the Wall Street Journal,” said David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund. “Koch Industries is the perfect example of absolutely everything Charles claims to hate about our current political system. The hypocrisy is palpable.”

BACKGROUNDER
KOCH’S OP-ED: IS IT IRONY OR HYPOCRISY

In response to Koch Industries’ CEO Charles G. Koch’s opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today, campaign finance watchdog Public Campaign Action Fund compared some of Koch’s statements with reality.

Irony

Koch: “Too many businesses have successfully lobbied for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations or tariffs to keep more efficient competitors at bay.”

Hypocrisy

• Koch Industries, its executives, and its PAC donated $11,002,235 since 1989 to federal candidates, parties, and political committees.

• The largest individual donors from all Koch-related donations were Charles and David Koch and their wives, who together contributed $2.8 million over the same time period. Of that, just $1,500 went to Democrats.

• Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have received $630,950 in Koch-related donations. House Appropriations members have received $656,115.

• Koch Industries, its subsidiaries, and their PACs and employees donated $8,743,220 to state candidates, political parties, and committees since 2003.

• Koch Industries has spent $49,520,500 lobbying the federal government in just the last five years, for an average of nearly $10 million per year. In 2008, they spent more than $20 million lobbying the federal government.

• In January this year, Koch Industries hired seven lobbyists in Madison, Wisconsin.

Irony

Koch: “Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.”

Hypocrisy

• Koch Industries, like other oil companies, benefits from the massive federal subsidies from the federal government. President Obama has proposed eliminating them, which will save taxpayers $43 billion over the next ten years.

• Nowhere in his op-ed does Koch mention the subsidies.

• Oil and gas interests like Koch donated $27,582,799 in the 2010 election cycle. The largest source was Koch-related donations at $1,911,212.

• Seventy-one percent went to Republicans, who have almost exclusively opposed ending subsidies, with just 22 percent going to Democrats, who almost all supported ending the subsidies.

• For Koch-related donations, 93 percent went to the GOP and six percent went to the Democrats.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Koch, along with his brother David, has played an outsized role in the political showdown in Wisconsin between Governor Scott Walker and state employees:

• An organization the Koch brothers founded, Americans for Prosperity is running $342,200 worth of television adverting in the state.

• Their political action committee was among the top donors to Walker’s campaign, giving $43,000.

• Last week, a blogger impersonated David Koch and spoke with Walker for 20 minutes about strategy. The embarrassing prank unveiled the tremendous influence and access the Koch brothers have.

• Koch Industries gave more than $1.2 million to the Republican Governors Association, which spent $5 million to elect Walker in 2010 according to the organization’s website.

Except where otherwise noted, campaign finance and lobbying data in this fact sheet can be found at the websites for Center for Responsive Politics for federal figures and the National Institute for Money in State Politics for state figures.

On March 1, former Greenpeacer Annie Leornard and the makers of “The Story of Stuff” rolled out a new video: “The Story of Citizens United v. FEC”. 

The new video addresses last year’s Citizens United v. FEC ruling by an activist ‘conservative’ Supreme Court that overthrew more than a half-century of federal election laws and held in effect that the Founding Fathers must have meant that the corporations they so despised (the property of shareholders and both creatures of government and beneficiaries of grants of limited shareholder liability and other government largess, e.g., the East India Tea Company) are “persons” for the purpose of “free speech” under the Fourth Amendment.

Yes, the new video is flawed too, but it still seems like an honest – though skewed – effort to make sense of corporations and their proper role in government.

Let me ask anyone who looks at the video to ask themselves: would there be a Left wing, pro-government agenda on the five topics the video lists – Good Jobs, Healthcare, Safe Products, Clean Air & Water, and Responsible Government – if government had not first started favoring elites by creating “legal entity” corporations whose purposed owners, the shareholders, were absolved by government for any liability whatsoever for damages caused by “corporate” acts? It seems to me that if we want the Left to back away from the fight with corporations over the wheel of government, we have to strike at the real root – the government enabled aspects of corporations that set them up as moral-hazard embodied zombies detached from personal responsibility and communities.

Can I look forward to an ‘insightful’ post by a deep Austrian thinker on this latest video to show up soon on the pages of LvMI? Expectation of disappointment Hope springs eternal!

More about The Story of Stuff Project and film funders here and here; their website indicates that they have a group on the WiserEarth global collaboration platform which I am learning of for the first time. LvMI supporters, participants and fans looking to expand the Austrian message might check out this facility to see if it has any good ideas on functionality (we, too, all want to “Discover, Connect, Share and Collaborate”, right?)

Here’s the  video:

[View:http://www.youtube.com/storyofstuffproject:550:0]

There’s good news in that people are starting to see parallels between parasitism in nature – particularly the striking ‘zombie parasitism where the parasite controls the behavior of its host – and our ruling class … even as our tribal impulses that are so easily hijacked lead us all to suspect ‘those other people’ as being the evil parasites.

But libertarians are absolutely right that we face a kleptocracy, in addition to stupid government and widespread moral hazard.

Enjoy this HuffPo piece, and the comments. Here’s the clip they use.

http://youtu.be/XuKjBIBBAL8

What a wonderful government we have!

In response to my earlier re-tweet of someone’s Twitter message that contained a link to a February 26 online news story entitled Genetic Patdown: Homeland Security plan for DNA screening could quickly lead to other uses, abuses (by Katie Drummond at The Daily). yesterday I was honored to get a personal tweet response from a member of the “TSABlog Team”!

Their outlink led to a post on the TSA blog (“TSA Testing DNA? No Way!“) that noted that the DHS is doing preliminary testing with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) – which already uses DNA testing in some cases to establish familial relationships in refugee processing – and provided no reassurances whatsoever, that DHS won’t be rolling out the new technology via the TSA as well:

DHS S&T expects to receive a prototype DNA analyzer device this summer to conduct a preliminary evaluation of whether this kind of technology could be considered for future use. At this time, there are no DHS customers, nor is there a timeline for deployment, for this kind of technology – this is a simply a preliminary test of how the technology performs.

See? Simply a preliminary test of a prototype by the science division of Homeland Security. TSA certainly ain’t using it NOW, and us bloggers at TSA certainly haven’t been told that Something Wicked Comes Our Way, at least not yet. Just like we had no CLUE that the “naked body scanners” the science guys were checking earlier would EVER be implemented.

But there’s alot more Orwellian here than the Doublespeak. I encourage you to read a blog post by another tweeter:

“Federal Government Objects To One Of My Tweets“

Here’s one of their observations:

“the TSA Blog Team is using a different short link url for each person they contact regarding this issue. They’ve contacted dozens so far. By having a unique link for each individual, this allows the TSA to monitor who clicks through to their blog post and who doesn’t. More monitoring of We The People.”

If you wanna rack up some TSA visits on my behalf, here’s the short link they gave me: http://ow.ly/44VF4.

More later.

Readers may recall my ongoing criticisms of Lew Rockwell, Stephan Kinsella and many others over their sympathy for and defense of statist mega-corporations like BP , their preference for confused attacks on “abstractions” like “the environment” (shared common or publicly-owned resources not under effective privatre control) while ignoring the role that “abstractions” like corporations playing in resolving or aggravating problems of human plan formation and conflict resolution, and for pretending that the unjustifiable state grant of limited liability to shareholders is inconsequential and has nothing to do with rapidly growing endemic/systemic corporate statism, so-called corporate “agency problems” (the struggles among, shareholders, executives, employees, and citizens groups/lawyers for control when clear owners are absent and costs/risks are externalized) and management failures in the financial industries and elsewhere?.

Clearly, the state grant of limited liability corporate status cannot be justified under libertarian principles; it was also an anathema to our Founding Fathers, who hated corporations (unlike their mistaken willingness to embed patents and copyright in the Constitution). It has long been crucial to investors choosing to incorporate (as opposed to accepting shared liability with their partners for the acts of their agents), and has had far-reaching consequences even greater than state-granted IP. Why, then, are libertarians defending ANY grants of limited liability? There are other forms of business organization available; such as sole proprietorships, classic, common-law contract-based partnerships, and “unlimited liability” corporations (American Express was an “unlimited liability” corporation for much of its history), firms whose capital is not “fully paid-in” (so that the company has a right to require shareholders to contribute more capital should existing capital be insufficient to pay debts).

In each of these cases, since shareholders have not been excused by government from potential personal liability for corporate acts (only people act, of course, but corporations have muddled all of this and become massive buck-passing machines), they retain a large tail of potential liaibility and so are all relatively incentivized to control risks that their agents may create. More exposure to risk will lead to more responsible behavior, and will abate call for more government interference. States all retain rights under the 14th Amendment to regulate different forms of business orgaizations differently, so they as well as federal regulators could lower regulatory barriers for unlimited liability corporations. 

But will capitalism collapse if voters and legislators end or disfavor limited liability corporations? Hardly: entrepreneurs, investors and shareholders might willingly choose forms of organization that do not need to be as heaviliy regulated by governments, and insurance and rating agencies would surely step into the breach with respect to the increased risk borne by shareholders – at cost of course, a cost that represents the risks that would otherwise be shifted to society as a whole. One effect would surely be a reduction in the calls by citizens groups for “corporate social responsibility” legislation.

But enough of prologue — did any readers see the rather startling – and in my mind  also rather mis-guided – piece in the January Harvard Business Review by Michael Porter (a professor at Harvard Business School) and Mark R. Kramer (a senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy Schoo of Government)? Entitled “The Big Idea: Creating Shared Value“, it is accompanied by an interview of Michael Porter entiled “Rethinking Capitalism“. Both are worth a review and head-scratching by LvMI and other readers.

It seems to me that Porter’s core points are the following:

The capitalist system is under siege. In recent years business increasingly has been viewed as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies are widely perceived to be prospering at the expense of the broader community.

Even worse, the more business has begun to embrace corporate responsibility, the more it has been blamed for society’s failures. The legitimacy of business has fallen to levels not seen in recent history. This diminished trust in business leads political leaders to set policies that undermine competitiveness and sap economic growth. Business is caught in a vicious circle.

A big part of the problem lies with companies themselves, which remain trapped in an outdated approach to value creation that has emerged over the past few decades. They continue to view value creation narrowly, optimizing short-term financial performance in a bubble while missing the most important customer needs and ignoring the broader influences that determine their longer-term success. How else could companies overlook the well-being of their customers, the depletion of natural resources vital to their businesses, the viability of key suppliers, or the economic distress of the communities in which they produce and sell? How else could companies think that simply shifting activities to locations with ever lower wages was a sustainable “solution” to competitive challenges? Government and civil society have often exacerbated the problem by attempting to address social weaknesses at the expense of business. The presumed trade-offs between economic efficiency and social progress have been institutionalized in decades of policy choices.

Companies must take the lead in bringing business and society back together. The recognition is there among sophisticated business and thought leaders, and promising elements of a new model are emerging. Yet we still lack an overall framework for guiding these efforts, and most companies remain stuck in a “social responsibility” mind-set in which societal issues are at the periphery, not the core.

The solution lies in the principle of shared value, which involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. Businesses must reconnect company success with social progress. Shared value is not social responsibility, philanthropy, or even sustainability, but a new way to achieve economic success. It is not on the margin of what companies do but at the center. We believe that it can give rise to the next major transformation of business thinking. ….

The purpose of the corporation must be redefined as creating shared value, not just profit per se. This will drive the next wave of innovation and productivity growth in the global economy. It will also reshape capitalism and its relationship to society. Perhaps most important of all, learning how to create shared value is our best chance to legitimize business again.

An article (nay, essentially a press release) by a Harvard-related commenter at BNET (the CBS Interactive Business Netwrok) says the folllowing (emphasis added):

Few people are as associated with modern capitalism as Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, whose theories on strategy and competitiveness have shaped the direction of countless corporations.

So his latest article in Harvard Business Review comes as a shocker. Porter… argues that companies are locked in an “outdated” approach to creating value, focused on short-term profit while forgetting what they can do to benefit society–investments, by the way, that would pay off by ensuring long-term success.

One result: People have justifiably lost trust in business and are even questioning the very notion of capitalism.

… The idea that business has sold its soul in the pursuit of quick profit is nothing new, of course. But Porter and Kramer bring to the party a wealth of knowledge on the mutual benefits derived from a linking of economic and social goals.

And they create a new vision of how to get it done, a framework they call the “principle of shared value.”

The solution “involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. Businesses must reconnect company success with social progress. Shared value is not social responsibility, philanthropy, or even sustainability, but a new way to achieve economic success. It is not on the margin of what companies do but at the center. We believe that it can give rise to the next major transformation of business thinking.”

Some of the other highlights:

New skills required. Leaders and managers must develop skills and knowledge that give them a keen appreciation of societal needs, the ability to work across profit/nonprofit boundaries, and a deep understanding of how business productivity serves more than shareholders.

Government’s role re-conceived. Regulators must create policies, regulations and laws in ways that support shared value rather than work against it.

Broaden the role of capitalism. Companies have taken too narrow a definition of capitalism. We should be looking to business to help solve the world’s great problems, the authors argue. “The moment for a new conception of capitalism is now; society’s needs are large and growing, while customers, employees, and a new generation of young people are asking business to step up.”

The full article is …is bound to be one of the most debated and discussed thought pieces in 2011, you’ll want to check it out.

Some argue that business has no obligation beyond serving customers, creating jobs and, yes, making a profit for stakeholders. Isn’t it enough that companies already bankroll the health benefits of millions of Americans? Are you one of these capitalism minimalists? Or does business have broader mission to improve the society in which it operates?

Anybody wanna tell Mr. Porter that we can “fix capitalism” simply by ending limited liability – leaving owners to replace society and governments as the parties most interested in making sure that corporate managers are not creating too much risk? 

Far from needing new principles, we need a revival of OLD ones – of self-responsibility, rather than government-enabled risk-shifting.

Here’s the 15-minute video:

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrsjLA2NGTU:550:0]

Further to my previous post (Rethinking “Rethinking IP”, or, if we step away from statism, will societies not find ways to protect ideas?), allow me to note here some conversations from the comment thread to Stephan Kinsella‘s Rethinking IP post.

My key point is that it is cooperating individuals in societies with shared values, mores and customs who come up with “property rights” in the form of agreed practices that they find mutually suitable, not thinkers who are coming up with “principles”, and using them to tell others how stupid they are.

Societes of cooperating individuals are the sine qua non of ALL property. Those who focus on the “principles” but ignore the need to build community are trying to grow trees at the risk of damaging the  forest.

I’ ve corrected a few typos and added emphasis:

Stephan Kinsella February 16, 2011 at 12:51 pm

Peter Surda February 16, 2011 at 9:46 am

Tokyo Tom,

my argument is that immaterial goods are an interpretation of the material goods, rather than a separate phenomenon. If I was wrong, it would be possible to show an immaterial good which does not contain a material good, or how to interact with an immaterial good without using the material world, or how to act without changing the physical world.

I don’t object to the claim that ideas have values. However, if we assigned property rights to them, we would need to sacrifice a proportional amount of physical property right. If you, in general, accept the concept of physical property rights (which all of IP proponents I debated so far do), then your only defence of IP can be that the rights you are gaining are more important than those that you are losing (= utilitarianism).

Reply

TokyoTom February 17, 2011 at 9:31 am

Peter, I’m afraid we may have different understandings of what ‘property’ is; my rather pragmatic concept is here:

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/12/20/what-is-quot-property-quot-a-few-weird-thoughts-on-evolution-society-quot-property-rights-quot-and-quot-intellectual-property-quot-and-the-principles-we-structure-to-justify-them.aspx

Seems to me that humans and the societies they live in have rather flexible views of what is ‘property’, and it is easy to understand the choices in a [personal] utilitarian light; that is, resources that are given protection are those that are relatively more important and relatively more easily protected [by the people involved]. What can be easily defended personally (and by relatives or employees) may be ‘personal’ property, while other property that requires cooperation may be community property or property in which individuals have limited personal rights and corresponding responsibilities, but in all cases people carry a shared sense of what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ — that is, a shared sense of what is ‘property’, whom it belongs to and what that means in terms of rights and obligations.

Intellectual property and physical property are not very different in these regards in our own society, and both would be likely to arise and exist in one form or another even without a state. In cases of both physical property and IP, what is considered property will be based on the relative values placed on those who control such resources and those who wish to be able to make use of them – that is, on the purely utilitarian considerations of the people involved. If those generating ideas wish to control their use by others and others find such ideas valuable, then they will come to mutually agreeable terms of use – such as a contract as to whether a book may be duplicated or shared, or the terms under which manufacturing know-how will be made available. No express social ‘utilitarian’ agreements are needed, though general/widely-accepted norms may of course arise.

Is this something that makes sense to you?

FWIW, my own view is that largely it is the material goods that are an interpretation of the immaterial ones (viz., people’s values and ideas) rather than the other way around.

TT

Reply

Peter Surda February 17, 2011 at 10:05 am

Tokyo Tom,

I am afraid that you still do not address my objection. The objection is indifferent to the exact definition of property. It merely points out that no matter what your assumptions are, if they are contradictory with respect to each other, your position is wrong. Even if you change the assumptions, as long as they continue to contradict each other, you remain in error.

I’m sorry but I don’t have the time to read your whole article, so I’ll just make a summary based on what I think it says. Please correct me with I’m wrong. You are saying that as society evolves, people create rules of conduct and some of them are mandated by the use of force. Because there is a demand for “IP”, it is possible that people will include “IP” in these rules.

I have no problem with this construct. But it goes too far ahead of the argument. First of all, it does not address the problem that no matter how the rules are constructed, as long as they are self-contradictory, they cannot be based on correct reasoning. It also does not address my second objection (which I mentioned elsewhere) in that it does not actually explain what IP is.

TokyoTom February 18, 2011 at 1:22 am

Peter, thanks for your further observations. I think you still misunderstand my position about how ‘property’ arises. Property has its roots in competition over resources, and in the choices we faces as to what resources we devote our limited energies in securing and defending. In human societies, this is a process reflecting both competition and cooperation. This piece by Bruce Yandle is useful in illustrating how property arises:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-commons-tragedy-or-triumph/

Now, to address your specific points:

no matter what your assumptions are, if they are contradictory with respect to each other, your position is wrong.

Okay, but what ‘assumptions’ of mine are you referring to?

You are saying that as society evolves, people create rules of conduct and some of them are mandated by the use of force. Because there is a demand for “IP”, it is possible that people will include “IP” in these rules.

A nuance: the underpinnings of property are not deliberately created rules at all, but evolved and shared viscerally felt understandings, as well as culture. It is on this foundation that some members of society may consciously build rules that the rest of scoiety may adopt – in which case, our senses of right and wrong kick in.

no matter how the rules are constructed, as long as they are self-contradictory, they cannot be based on correct reasoning.

My position is that most ‘property’ is not consciously constructed at all. There are some deliberate choices involving one or more persons, in which case they rely on the respective preferences of the people involved, not MY assumptions. But yes, some (many!) deliberately made rules can be based on incorrect reasoning – in which case the rules ultimately fail.

It … does not actually explain what IP is.

In my view, IP encompasses various ways that societies protect ideas – from simple personal private protection of them to agreed protection among company employees, to agreed protection by contracting users, to devices/techniques that restrict copying, to feelings and community morals that copying is wrong without permission, to various types of sanctions, such as being expelled from a particular community and other moral sanction.

‘IP’ does NOT require a state.

Does this help?

TT

TokyoTom February 16, 2011 at 11:05 pm

TokyoTom February 18, 2011 at 2:23 am

Wildberry, allow me a few thoughts on your comments above: http://blog.mises.org/15633/rethinking-ip/comment-page-1/#comment-759516

Mises called property a “human device”, and I have been repeating that here in support of the notion that humans agree what property is in order to facilitate the goal of cooperation, which is the very definition of society. The ways we choose, if rational, are designed to achieve goals which we seek to achieve. By “we”, I am referring to humans bound together in a society.

Except that Austrians would point out that ‘we’ don’t choose as a whole, individuals make their own choices, typically based on building blocks constructed by others but also including subconscious and cultural ones.

a “good” economic theory leads us effectively to the outcomes we desire.Therefore the operation of property rights and the economic policies employed to achieve desirable social goals should align.

I think that in the Austrian view, a ‘good’ economic theory is simply one that accurately reflects actual huiman behavior, and notes how states often frustrate problem-solving while enabling the creaming of common resources and other one-sided practices by elites.

 

The Austrian/libertarian view is that governments shouldn’t be consciously striving to employ any ‘economic policies’ to achieve any ‘desirable social goals”, as these are the objective of differening individuals all with differing preferences, and that the state mainly just gets in the way, enabling kleptocracy and incompetence and creating rigidities.

Identifying those areas where the operation of laws and government conflict with the preferred system of economic policies is one way (a very good way) to navigate among the myriad of legal and political issues that most who post here agree are not producing the outcomes we desire.

An Austrian/libertarian would agree only in the limited sense that ‘the preferred system of economic policies’ is to get government out of the way. People of more limited ambition like me would say that we should focus first on rolling back the most destructive and outrageous (reflecting a shared social sense that too much ‘theft’ and disruption is ‘too much’!) government interventions. Such an effort requires building a community of people who have shared purposes – even if the shared purposes may not share precisely the same ‘principles’.

Change, reform, revolution, whatever form of change one advocates, is best aimed at those specific conflicts. This ongoing debate about IP is simply a vehicle that is useful in the analysis of these conflicts.

Austrians oppose coercive state interventions that favor some while stifling others. While some want to do away with the state entirely, I believe it is more productive to focus on the most significant state interventions.

I would certainly agree with Stephan that IP is one the state’s significant and now increaasingly counterproductive interventions. In this sense, State-created IP is far more than simply ‘simply a vehicle that is useful in the analysis of these conflicts.’

I criticize SK and many of his followers about not granting a fair reading of IP laws in stating their opposition. As a result of this practice, much confusion results about what IP is, why it is tied to the same ethical principles, and in the same way, as any other legitimate agreement between cooperating humans. This in turn results in a non-productive debate, and little progress towards the obvious goal of coming together here on what and how to target desired change.

Let me disagree slightly: while we DO have an unproductive debate, Stephan and others are very right to point to ways that current state IP is extremely abusive and wasteful, and that the problem is growing. Yes, some may exaggerate.

But the REAL problem is that Stephan wrongly seems to feel that he has to attack ALL IP in order to round up opposition to STATE IP. But the two are entirely different; Austrians should not insist that, without state IP, there will be no free-market mechanisms and institutions that will arise to protect ideas. or that any such mecahisms, voluntarily agreed, would be ‘unprincipled’. Far from arguing with people’s rather visceral senses of what is right and wrong, Austrians should be directing such impulses to protect ideas into voluntary and non-statist avenues.

This makes us pretty ineffective agents for change. This is one explanation for why the libertarian political movement is so ineffective, in my view.

Sadly, I think you have a point. That is why I trouble Stephan by commenting here — I expect and hope for more from this particular community of libertarians.

Not sure how long you’ve been commenting here, but you’re certainly welcome, from my point of view.

TT

Wildberry February 18, 2011 at 1:00 pm

@TokyoTom February 18, 2011 at 2:32 am

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I have just a few comments:

“Austrians oppose coercive state interventions that favor some while stifling others. While some want to do away with the state entirely, I believe it is more productive to focus on the most significant state interventions.”

I think that ancaps and minarchists could cooperate in this regard. It seems a choice between doing nothing (i.e. even opposition to voting) because the whole government structure is going to collapse anyway, or doing something now. If we decided to do something, it seems rational to pick on the most egregious State interventions first. If we were really intelligent about it, we would identify those issues which have a low threshold to change while making a truly significant difference, or a high threshold for change that are game-changers, like real banking reform for example. If it got down to a point where we had accomplished minarchism and ancaps wanted to keep going, we could part company then. Before that point, it seems unnessary to be adversaries.

“I would certainly agree with Stephan that IP is one the state’s significant and now increasingly counterproductive interventions. In this sense, State-created IP is far more than simply ‘simply a vehicle that is useful in the analysis of these conflicts.’”

You are reading a little too much in my comment. I am saying the discussions here at mises.org are a vehicle for understanding principles upon which we may oppose harmful state interventions. Mercantile/State collusion is harmful and should be eliminated.

“Let me disagree slightly: while we DO have an unproductive debate, Stephan and others are very right to point to ways that current state IP is extremely abusive and wasteful, and that the problem is growing. Yes, some may exaggerate.”

Yes, it is always appropriate to give examples that support one’s position. However, if your examples support a position that is based on an inaccurate or unfair reading of the law, then it creates confusion among those who take SK at his word, given his expertise as an IP lawyer. It seems to me that if the examples are representative of some abuse, then that argument is not diminished by being honest about what the existing law actually is and how it operates.

As an example, it is common here to base an anti-IP argument on the premise that “ideas are free”, while as SK knows, both copyright and patent laws explicitly exclude ideas from protection. To even imply otherwise fosters confusion and undermines real understanding of the problem.

“Far from arguing with people’s rather visceral senses of what is right and wrong, Austrians should be directing such impulses to protect ideas into voluntary and non-statist avenues.”

Exactly. I really like your view about how principles of property rights arise as a result of the human need to cooperate with one another. That is why people HAVE a visceral objection to the assertion that there are no IP rights. It grates against a common-sense understanding of right and wrong. This point is articulated beautifully in a paper (and book) by Kathleen Touchstone. Are you familiar with her?

“Sadly, I think you have a point. That is why I trouble Stephan by commenting here — I expect and hope for more from this particular community of libertarians.”

Likewise, although I have noticed lately that more voices are coming to the fore in support of IP, perhaps because the are seeing that there is no reason to be intimidated by rude behavior.

“Not sure how long you’ve been commenting here, but you’re certainly welcome, from my point of view.”

About a year or so. It’s a pleasure corresponding with you. Thank you.

TokyoTom February 20, 2011 at 9:48 am

“IP is antithetical to capitalism and the free market.”

Stephan, isn’t this more than a bit of an overstatement? Is IP impossible in a free-market? Is it antithetical to capitalism to invest in protecting ideas?

“Typical of IP advocates. They are either stupid or dishonest.”

I am tempted to say something flip by mirroring you, but I’ll bite my tongue, and simply say that this is utterly unhelpful, and that I hope you fell at least a little chagrin that you damage our community and your cause in this way.

Yours in striking at the root,

Tom

I can understand the desire to protect one’s business from new government carbon mandates and from noxious new regulations over all derivatives hedging purposes (seriously I can understand it, even as many on the left now harbor deep suspicions of business), but doesn’t buying control over government through the GOP kind of cut against the libertarian, free-markets message?

Koch Brothers Roundup (major news reporting on Rancho Mirage gathering)

Why can’t our supposedly adamantly libertarian billionaire Koch brothers put their money where their ideals are, say by establishing partnerships and other organizations that DON’T require government-granted legal entity/ limited liability privileges? (Simply creating obstensibly libertarian pressure groups like Cato that refuse to criticise corporate statism doesn’t count.)

Where are our leading libertarians who are forming:

• The Buck Stops Here Clubs, or Businesses for Partnerships and Personal Liability and Responsibility?
• Businesses, Shareholders, Investors and Executives Who Don’t Buy Votes, Politicians or Judges Clubs?
• Businesses that Don’t Do Business with Government Clubs?

It’s not as if government:

• MAKES investors choose limited liability corporations that mask responsibility,
• makes corporations fight for government favor, including to pretend that corporate legal entity fictions need disembodied ‘voices’, even though their shareholders, managers and employees all have their own, or
• makes prominent ‘libertarians’ do shallow, one-sided work for fairly naked corporate rent-seeking ‘Astroturf’ outfits.

(I feel increasingly grateful for the individuals who so generously devote their time and resources to LvMI! Jeffrey Tucker, are we trumpeting our own funders loudly enough? They deserve our thanks AND patronage!)

The Middle East gets its popular revolts, but we just have more elites stirring up and hiding behind decidedly paｒtisan animosity (hello, George Soros!). Alas, our tribal nature makes it difficult for us to perceive our real enemies, and inclines us to internecine warfare over the wheel of government to the hard work of building community.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the LA Times February 6 article Koch brothers now at heart of GOP power is worth a gander and some pondering — and just a start at looking at billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch. Useful charts on vote-buying by the Kochs are here and here. I’m not an opponent of any industry, per se, or of the Tea Party movement, but there’s far too much uncomfortable truth to the Left’s criticisms of the Kochs. Why can’t they publicly criticize government and corporate rent-seeking, or work publicly to build community? The secrecy itself is poisoning the cause they profess to believe in (see more links below).

See Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece, Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.

Koch Billionaire Bros. and Wealthy Meet to Usurp Democracy, Greenpeace Sends Message, others Arrested

Uncloaking the Koch Brothers Trillion & Billionaire Oil Regime

Stephan Kinsella has another post up at the Mises Daily on “Rethinking IP“; while I share Stephan’s mission of ending state-sponsored IP – which has morphed into gross corporate-statist corruption, oppression and profound waste – as usual Stephan’s aggressive approach has generated as much heat as light in the comments section.

Rather than reaching a shared understanding of how damaging IP has become (there are real frightening aspects to the current situation) and putting heads together as to whether private alternatives are acceptable or likely or already exist, we have proponents and opponents of IP largely arguing past each other; one seems to assume that IF there IS a “principled” basis for IP, then a state role must be accepted, while the other seems to assume that IF there is NO “principled” basis for STATE-CREATED IP, then all IP is theft, so that those who produce useful or appreciated ideas, technologies, music, art and literature will go unrewarded.

How sad that even libertarians forget the role of private efforts and of communities in protecting valued resources and productivity!

I left the following comment (in moderation as a result of my immoderate use of links):

Prostities, liars, fraud, abuse …. but nice – and absurd – words about George Bush. 

See http://www.zerohedge.com/article/marc-fabers-most-provocative-interview-ever-compares-obama-prostitute-goes-long-treasurys.

YouTube clip here:

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiTu9RfJ1Ns:550:0]

Here’s another post of the quoted title by Joel Hirschhorn that I thought worthy of your attenton (emphasis mine): 

Everything wrong, rotten and evil with the political system surfaces in the current health care reform bills in the Senate and House. It should make Americans sick and furious that their elected representatives are selling them out, providing benefits to corporate interests and making national finances even worse than they are already. Members of Congress have been bought by corporate money and have made deals so that they can get reelected.

It is not merely that the government is dysfunctional and inefficient. The real tragedy is that it is totally corrupted by corporate and other special interests. The concept of a republic with representative government has been made meaningless. To apply the concept of a democracy to the US is plain stupid. Only delusional people support a delusional democracy.

In the end, President Obama and Congress will congratulate themselves and tell Americans that they will benefit from whatever bill is signed into law. But as many trustworthy analysts have already revealed, lobbyists have succeeded in ensuring that the seemingly few benefits to the public are heavily outweighed by the financial benefits to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, for example. Huge amounts of money will be transferred from taxpayers to corporate interests, placing the nation in even worse financial shape in decades to come.

In a sane and true democracy a revolution would be brewing to overturn such a corrupt government. But Americans remain distracted, hopeless, and disinterested. The two-party plutocracy run by rich and powerful interests continues to successfully control and manipulate the public with the help of corporate news media.

I keep meeting Americans and those from other countries who see all these dismal truths, but clearly the vast majority of Americans have lost the revolutionary spirit upon which their country was founded. British tyranny was so easily seen. Today’s tyranny by the plutocracy that greatly harms at least one third of the population remains victorious.

Despite millions of Americans that go hungry, homeless and jobless without access to health care, and with too little energy to become political rebels, the greater number of those in better financial shape seems more than willing to ignore the decay of a once great nation.

When the health care reform bill is sign by a grinning President Obama it should not trigger happiness. It should spark major riots in the streets by Americans willing to fight for a true democracy.