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When property laws were introduced to the US, parties with an information advantage were able to exploit loopholes, trick ignorant people into signing agreement
by riazrizvi 7y ago
When property laws were introduced to the US, parties with an information advantage were able to exploit loopholes, trick ignorant people into signing agreements that they didn’t understand etc. Lots of people fell foul to the new system and I’m sure it was written initially to favor certain parties. But it’s better than no ownership framework. The thing to do now is understand it.
- jjoonathan 7y ago> But it’s better than no ownership framework. That hardly follows. "IP" has very different properties than land, and "no ownership framework" is hardly the only alternative under consideration. Even to the extent that land ownership and idea ownership can be analogized, using the former to justify the later is a poor argument on account of the enormous known systematic problems with the former. In particular, there's a reason why economists borrowed the term "rent" to mean "benefit received for non-produced input." > The thing to do now is understand it. That doesn't justify anything either. Did organized crime just take over your neighborhood? Understanding their priorities will help you deal with the problem, but it doesn't make them good and it doesn't make them worth protecting.