Assuming that billionaires are any sort of “problem” (I don’t), the solution is not to take their wealth and redistribute it to others. No, the solution is to remove any and all barriers to compete with them entrepreneurially. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos became billionaires because they provide or have provided goods and services to willing customers, but some of their wealth was all but guaranteed by the monopoly protections afforded by software patents and trademarks. To the extent that competition was coercively prohibited by the state in the issue and protection of these patents and trademarks, their gains were ill-gotten. Abolish intellectual monopoly, and every other form of protectionism, and the economy will redistribute their wealth by redistributing their market share. “Problem” solved, and that’s today’s two cents.
The downside is that not having copyright protection can stifle innovation. Why bother working hard and spending money to create something that is an idea you have if after having achieved it someone who is lazy can simple copy it without having to do the hard work and spend the money it took you to create it? What is the incentive to create something if you can wait for someone else to do the hard work and copy what they did? You see the problem is not solved. There are pros and cons to both sides of the argument. Is… Read more »
You seem to be making a lot of unsubstantiated assertions, none of which justify initiating aggression. So what if copyright and patent spur innovation if their enforcement is an act of statist aggression? All that would mean is that creators must find some other way to protect their creations. Good and well, do that but I do not believe that copyright and patent would exist in any form that we currently know them in a stateless free market. Nor do I believe they would even be necessary. They are wasteful, and in my understanding a net negative in the costs… Read more »
Theft of IP is an initiation of aggression. I have read Kinsella’s view prior to my post and I am not convinced by him. I also think it is hypocritical for someone to claim they are opposed to patents and copyrights and work as a patent or copyright lawyer. That is like a person claiming to be opposed to the income tax working for the IRS. I am convinced by Spooner and rothbard btw. Have you heard of Robert Kerns?
No, that’s like someone who opposes taxation to be working as a tax lawyer. Patents and copyright enforcement takes my real property by re-assigning certain uses of it based on government decree. Ideas are merely patterns of information, and non-scarce, and so cannot be the subject of property rights without infringing on property rights over real, scarce resources. It just doesn’t logically follow. Come up with some non-aggressive way to protect your ideas, because the state is criminal.
As Kent wrote ” … you don’t owe molesters anything.” (Maybe paraphrased) Kent, please correct me if I missed your drift.
At any rate, I believe the burden should be on the claimant.