[ Thanks to PiotR
for this link. ]
“Market economies require a rule of law. A society without state
protection of individual rights, especially the right to own
property, would not build private long term assets, a key
ingredient of a growing modern economy. Yet an excess of rules–in
the extreme case, central planning–has also been shown to stifle
initiative and produce economic stagnation…“But regardless of its causes, conceptualization is irreversibly
increasing the emphasis on the protection of intellectual, relative
to physical, property rights. Before World War I, markets in this
country were essentially uninhibited by government regulations, but
they were supported by rights to property, which in those years
meant largely physical property. Intellectual property–patents,
copyrights, and trademarks–represented a far less important
component of the economy, which was mainly agricultural. One of the
most significant inventions of the nineteenth century was the
cotton gin. Perhaps it was a harbinger of things to come that the
intellectual property content of the cotton gin was never
effectively protected from copiers.“Only in recent decades, as the economic product of the United
States has become so predominantly conceptual, have issues related
to the protection of intellectual property rights come to be seen
as significant sources of legal and business uncertainty.
Intellectual property is clearly more difficult to define and,
hence, to protect. The physical property of one owner cannot occupy
the same space as that of another. Ownership of physical property
is capable of being defended by police, the militia, or private
mercenaries. Ownership of ideas is far less easily
protected…”