Lecture

Property may be defined as an exclusive right to control an economic good and is derived from scarcity. How, then, could it be possible to own an idea if it is not scarce? Watch this video lecture to understand the fundamental concepts of property rights and the problems caused by intellectual property laws.

Topics covered include:

  • Challenges with patents
  • Natural law vs. legislation
  • Scarcity and property rights
  • Elements of legitimate property
  • Intellectual property controversy
  • Libertarianism and the market economy

Key points:

  • Patents stifle innovation and cause endless litigation
  • Intellectual property laws are simply state grants of monopoly privilege
  • First mover advantage provides enough motivation to encourage innovation
  • Property comes from scarcity. It is the scarcity of a resource that urges individuals to declare property rights over it
  • Libertarianism revolves around the idea that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else

Source: Saifedean Ammous
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Last modified: Monday, May 20, 2024, 1:24 PM