Let's say you were in a Walmart, about to pick up a bottle of Coca Cola in an ancap world. Except, the bottles of Coca Cola could have been produced by anyone (including, *shudders*, Pepsi) who wanted to get in on the Coca Cola brand, and the bulding your standing in isn't a Walmart at all, just some shmuck's store who decided to stick the Walmart logo on the front.
Would "brands" survive the transition into a stateless society? Not just particular brands, but the concept of "brands", in their entirety?
I'm no expert on this topic, but I imagine the cola manufacturer could write "manufactured by Coca Cola Ltd" on his bottles, while Pepsi couldn't.
WalMart wouldn't carry knock-offs that had inferior taste, since they want to keep customers. They would do some of the work in getting the "real thing". As for fake WalMart stores, they'd have to go through an immense amount of work to fool people into thinking they were the real thing. Given that there aren't many WalMart stores, they could just have a list of the real ones in a given town.
Have you ever heard of generic cola? Generic or store brands are common now, and I see no reason why they would not remain common in libertopia. If anyone claims that their cola is Coca Cola, then they are guilty of fraud. I don't see why Coca Cola wouldn't remain either in libertopia. They keep their recipe a trade secret. If you want that particular flavor of cola, then you will have to buy Coca Cola. If you aren't particular, then you might buy the cheap generic or store brands.
Seeing as Coca Cola is popular now, I don't see why it wouldn't be popular in libertopia (unless it just falls out of fashion). It's popular not because of laws but because of taste. There may be some laws protecting Coca Cola, but like I said, they keep their recipe secret. So it's not like everyone knows how to make Coca Cola and they aren't permitted to.
I admit, I hadn't considered that pretending to be something your not could count as fraud.
As for your comments about taste, the specific reason why I chose a product like Coca Cola is because there's no way of determining quality of the product until after you've purchased it. So, you could have two bottles in a shelf, one with legit CC, and one with generic, both with the same label... it wouldn't be until you've handed over your money, cracked open the bottle, and started drinking, that you knew which one was the right one.
Well at that point you would realize that you have been defrauded. However, that depends upon whether or not the trademark has become genericized. While trademarks would not exist in libertopia, if the brand or logo or whatever has not become genericized, then it would be fraud. If it has become genericized, then it would not be fraud.
Hmmm... so if a product labelled itself as "coke" that would be fine, but "Coca Cola", no. Despite both actually being tradmarks of the CC family.
But couldn't two businesses use the same name and logos? Would that still count as fraud?
Zlatko: I'm no expert on this topic, but I imagine the cola manufacturer could write "manufactured by Coca Cola Ltd" on his bottles, while Pepsi couldn't.
This is interesting, you're saying product branding woud basically become a truth claim, such that anyone trying to copy that branding would be essentially committing fraud?
In a copyright-free environment, a company couldn't even protect its company name nor its art style for that name. But truth claims would still be sacrosanct, as in your "manufactured by" idea.
But since company names aren't necessarily protected there could be a hundred different coca-colas. Maybe it would be to a free-society's advantage to at least ask companies on a voluntary basis to choose different company names. Else even the truth-claim / fraud idea doesn't work.
I think that trademarks would still be protected in an anarchist world, since a trademark says something specifically about the product, something which cannot be replicated, whereas IP can be. Coca-Cola is so widely known that selling something which says coca-cola on it is almost certainly fraud.
Anyway, even if trademarks weren't protected businesses would still have an incentive not to sell fake coca-cola.
Exhibit A:
I had seen these awhile ago. My father actually bought some, thinking they were a great price on sharpies :P Work fine so far.
Anenome: Zlatko: I'm no expert on this topic, but I imagine the cola manufacturer could write "manufactured by Coca Cola Ltd" on his bottles, while Pepsi couldn't. This is interesting, you're saying product branding woud basically become a truth claim, such that anyone trying to copy that branding would be essentially committing fraud? In a copyright-free environment, a company couldn't even protect its company name nor its art style for that name. But truth claims would still be sacrosanct, as in your "manufactured by" idea. But since company names aren't necessarily protected there could be a hundred different coca-colas. Maybe it would be to a free-society's advantage to at least ask companies on a voluntary basis to choose different company names. Else even the truth-claim / fraud idea doesn't work. In fear of "retreading ground" (so to speak) I took a peek in Stephan Kinsella's "Against Intellectual Property" and he appears to share the view that the consumer's rights are being violated in cases of trademark "piracy": Stephan Kinsella: Thus, it would appear that, under libertarianism, trademark law should give consumers, not trademark users, the right to sue trademark pirates He even uses an example of a burger chain changing their name to that of one of their more successfull competitors. The conclusion (not in the book, my own words) being that doing so would not be prohibited, but could be used by consumers in a court of law as evidence of fraud. I don't know if anyone follows PC gaming news, but one can find there a good example from the real world. Bethesda recently threatened to sue a developer (Mojang) for calling his upcoming game "Scrolls" - they claimed it was too similar to "The Elder Scrolls" which is a game series they produce. The games are completely different, as is their logotype. In the libertarian society envisioned by Kinsella, Bethesda would have no right to sue as their property rights are not being violated. The developer of "Scrolls" could keep the name practically without any fear of being sued since he knows that the consumer is extremely unlikely to mistake his game for The Elder Scrolls series. If anyone is interested, the two companies reached an agreement outside court. I quite liked the tone of the article summarizing it on rockpapershotgun.com. The writer seems to pick up on the extreme bureacracy that is current law despite not being a libertarian (as far as I know). Rockpapershotgun.com: Because we, as a species, have allowed our reality to become so ridiculous that people can own the rights to a noun, there has been an ongoing battle between Bethesda and Mojang over the right to use the word “Scrolls” in a game name. Bethesda’s very long running The Elder Scrolls first-person RPG is utterly indistinguishable from Mojang’s card-collecting Scrolls. Wait, is it the other way around? I’m so confused! But the good news is, their lawyers have finished spending each other’s money and there’s an agreement! Bethesda…wait, sorry, Mojang are going to be able to use the name “Scrolls” so long as they agree to give the trademark to Moj… BethSoft, and agree not to make a game that competes with the Elder series with that name. Which, er, is what they were doing in the first place before two sets of lawyers bought themselves new speedboats and added another wing to their mansions. Good work, trademark law! But the good news is, Mojang gets to keep calling their game Scrolls, and it’s time for my breakfast. | Post Points: 5
Stephan Kinsella: Thus, it would appear that, under libertarianism, trademark law should give consumers, not trademark users, the right to sue trademark pirates
Rockpapershotgun.com: Because we, as a species, have allowed our reality to become so ridiculous that people can own the rights to a noun, there has been an ongoing battle between Bethesda and Mojang over the right to use the word “Scrolls” in a game name. Bethesda’s very long running The Elder Scrolls first-person RPG is utterly indistinguishable from Mojang’s card-collecting Scrolls. Wait, is it the other way around? I’m so confused! But the good news is, their lawyers have finished spending each other’s money and there’s an agreement! Bethesda…wait, sorry, Mojang are going to be able to use the name “Scrolls” so long as they agree to give the trademark to Moj… BethSoft, and agree not to make a game that competes with the Elder series with that name. Which, er, is what they were doing in the first place before two sets of lawyers bought themselves new speedboats and added another wing to their mansions. Good work, trademark law! But the good news is, Mojang gets to keep calling their game Scrolls, and it’s time for my breakfast.
Because we, as a species, have allowed our reality to become so ridiculous that people can own the rights to a noun, there has been an ongoing battle between Bethesda and Mojang over the right to use the word “Scrolls” in a game name. Bethesda’s very long running The Elder Scrolls first-person RPG is utterly indistinguishable from Mojang’s card-collecting Scrolls. Wait, is it the other way around? I’m so confused! But the good news is, their lawyers have finished spending each other’s money and there’s an agreement!
Bethesda…wait, sorry, Mojang are going to be able to use the name “Scrolls” so long as they agree to give the trademark to Moj… BethSoft, and agree not to make a game that competes with the Elder series with that name. Which, er, is what they were doing in the first place before two sets of lawyers bought themselves new speedboats and added another wing to their mansions. Good work, trademark law!
But the good news is, Mojang gets to keep calling their game Scrolls, and it’s time for my breakfast.
I think that "product differentiation" matters a whole lot less than we are told it does. If people who buy Nike care so much about the quality of their clothes and shoes, why are they so willing to buy knockoffs at the lower price? "Oh, but the quality of the real thing is what gives the knockoffs their value." Why does this matter? Why should value be imbued into things in this particular way?
Your question is actually a fairly easy to answer with some degree of finality - after all, the rise of IP and branding has been correlative.
Let's rewind to, say, 1900. If you were a poor man and you wanted a good pair of pants, you didn't go looking for "Levi's" logo, you bought whatever was available at the low price in a clothing store - as often used as new. To judge quality, you looked at it, tugged on it. A well-built pair of pants is pretty obvious by comparison to a crappy pair of pants that will fall apart. It's not like launching men to the moon or anything - though I'm sure either Levi's or Nike have a large enough cash-flow that they could actually fund a Moonshot if they put all their money just to that.
If you were wealthier and looking to drop some serious cash on a new suit, you shopped around on the basis of tailor reputation. Like any other market, there were low-end tailors, mid-range tailors and high-end-household-name tailors (like Armani is, today). The same went for carriages, automobiles, and so on.
The whole way of thinking of the market as being "driven" by "brands" and so on, is just upside-down and backwards.
And I don't think the possibility of buying a knockoff coke from a 2-bit corner store in Nowhereville is really that big of a deal. I mean, I don't think it's a primary concern in terms of we should rewire the whole market to make sure this travesty cannot occur.
Clayton -
I'm gonna have to actually read Kinsella's corpus. Can't see how trademarks could possibly not violate his larger arguments on IP generally. Claiming to own a word to the exclusion of others should be the exact same damn thing as claiming to own an idea :\ He'd better have a damn good consistent answer to that.
REAL WORLD SCENARIO
http://www.amazon.com/Cultures-for-Health-LLC-Grains/dp/B003JO71D8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1352681445&sr=8-2&keywords=water+kefir+grains
This genius sells who knows what under the guise of a reputable brand. The solution? A rating system. Just look at why the product is rated so low, and you're welcome to make an informed gamble on the product. Ultimately though Molyneux is right, you don't need to know how the cotton will be picked to know slaves should be free—and if you manage to predict it accurately, people will think you're insane. So I think most people's ideas about how problems will be solved are meaningless, and we really can't even fathom how a truly free, robust marketplace will rise above problems that plague a statist world.
Ultimately, the solution is efficient communication of information. Obviously, that's a necessarily high priority market demand, and it will be provided for on a high priority basis. If technology is this brilliant in a statist world, imagine (because that's all we can do) how sci-fi it's going to be in a free society.
"The solution? A rating system."
And in a world where businesses are naming themselves and their products after their competitors. Imagine a company products an exact replica of a coca cola bottle just with their own formula, how does a ratings company help us there.
Anenome: I'm gonna have to actually read Kinsella's corpus. Can't see how trademarks could possibly not violate his larger arguments on IP generally. Claiming to own a word to the exclusion of others should be the exact same damn thing as claiming to own an idea :\ He'd better have a damn good consistent answer to that.
First, you have to recognize that he is not saying that trademarks as they exist today are legitimate. The idea of a trademark in a libertarian society is quite different. If you buy a good, you expect to get that particular good. If I sell you a bottle of cola labelled "Coca Cola", you expect to receive a bottle of cola made by the Coca Cola company. If I sell you that bottle labelled "Coca Cola" and it was in fact made by Pepsi, then that is fraud.
But I have only defrauded you. I have not stolen from Coca Cola, which is the problem with trademarks as they exist today. Also, just because something is labelled X doesn't make it fraud. Earlier in this thread, I linked to this list of genericized trademarks. The point is that these particular trademarks or brandnames became so commonplace that they became associated with a general class of goods instead of a particular product within that class.
Anenome:Imagine a [douchebag in the marketplace, for example at amazon.com] produces an exact replica of a [Reputable Brand X Water Kefir Grains] just with their own formula, how does a ratings company help us there.
Anenome, I gave you a real world example in what may as well be anarchism, a free market so extreme that even cases of fraud aren't brought before a legal system. Amazon.com is doing nothing about it, and the merchant is selling under a reputable—but false—brand name. The solution was, as a matter of fact, not my opinion, a rating system. Or more generally, a system of efficient communication about information. Thus in this case, people are able to learn about the results from others who bought product X. Other free-ish markets have resorted to similar measures. Famous examples are Ebay and the completely anarchist Silk Road. The emergence of rating systems (or more generally, information technologies) isn't my theory of a solution, they are real world matter-of-fact answers.
But they aren't the only answers, nor the best, though they're clearly indicative of some features demanded from inevitable future attempts at solutions. My point is given that they emerged and manage so well in a statist world, imagine how much more efficient communications technologies will be in a free society, where the threat is potentially so much more real (the premise of your concern is that the threat will be greater).
Re: GotLucky, I wouldn't go as far as to argue that any fraud should be dealt with through legal violence. People get scammed, scammers get ostracized, and everyone benefits. Debugging and troubleshooting daily realities, it's what a free market society does—no legal violence required.
Anenome:I'm gonna have to actually read Kinsella's corpus. Can't see how trademarks could possibly not violate his larger arguments on IP generally. Claiming to own a word to the exclusion of others should be the exact same damn thing as claiming to own an idea :\ He'd better have a damn good consistent answer to that.
Anenome:Imagine a company products an exact replica of a coca cola bottle just with their own formula, how does a ratings company help us there.
the recipe for coca cola should get out there rather quick without protection of trade secrets and NDA's.
a competitor likely won't osterize whoever sells them a recipe,
as long as a person can live comfortably in one group or another, it won't matter if another group cuts that person off.
Store D: Is like Store C, except they clearly label their products as Coca Cola and "Coca Cola."
If you replace C by B, then I think D is the winner.
cab21: the recipe for coca cola should get out there rather quick without protection of trade secrets and NDA's. a competitor likely won't osterize whoever sells them a recipe, as long as a person can live comfortably in one group or another, it won't matter if another group cuts that person off.
What on earth makes you think the recipe would get out there? Even with the existing system, Coke keeps that formula secret. The situation would continue in the IP-free environment we suggest. NDA's would continue to exist, btw, there's no problem with them.
don't nda's ncc's make people a "slave"
people are keeped from using their own property as they please. if someone knows someone, but can't make it public or sell it privately, the person is owned and can not make use of what that person knows.
someone knows the formula, if one that knows could be paid to give it away, that person could sell it. if the people that know are loyal, then it would not be a proplem but the company would have no recourse for someone that choose to use his knoledge to benefit another company.
cab21: don't nda's ncc's make people a "slave" people are keeped from using their own property as they please. if someone knows someone, but can't make it public or sell it privately, the person is owned and can not make use of what that person knows. someone knows the formula, if one that knows could be paid to give it away, that person could sell it. if the people that know are loyal, then it would not be a proplem but the company would have no recourse for someone that choose to use his knoledge to benefit another company.
Paying someone not to talk disclose information is a valid business contract. It's an exchange. It's not force. Thus, perfectly acceptable in a free context. It can also contain agreements for paying damages for talking. Last one I signed offered maximum damages of $500,000 / year for 5 years if I talked :P
Paying someone not to talk disclose information is a valid business contract.
"Valid" on what grounds? Not any objective grounds, unless you've reconciled the fact/value dichotomy. And since it's only subjectively "valid" according to the whims of the parties involved, then it's invalid whenever a member values it as such—and nobody outside those involved in the contract have any relevance anyway.
Guys, this is a rare event. This is probably one of the only times I actually agree with hashem.
Remember it, as it may never happen again.
Kidding aside, I see guilds and trade unions as a way to enforce these contracts. In other words, if you want to remain a member of the guild, then you need to abide by the rules. While losing the status of a guild member may not be the worst thing in the world, how many of you would want to work with someone who can't keep his word?
people are keeped from using their own property as they please.
It isn't "theirs" to begin with.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Duly noted, gotlucky. Chalking up a big tally. One down.
@ John, I think cab21 was referring to the knowledge in their brains. It seems a pretty robust argument to say it's theirs—it certainly isn't anyone else'.
If they've signed a contract prohibiting them from releasing certain types of information, why would it not be enforceable?
Well hang on don't change the subject. You were saying a person's memories aren't owned by him.
Wait a second. If you are referring to ideas and simultaneously holding that they cannot be owned as they're infinite in supply (with which I agree), then in what sense are they that person's property? Hence it isn't their property to begin with. Thus the thrust of the argument is whether one can contract with another entity in a way that prohibits them from undertaking a given set of actions in order to receive whatever benefits the contract specifies. This isn't a slave contract but a voluntary contract with specific terms for reimbursement. These aren't slave contracts any more than a contract for performance of any sort is one. They're contracts for non-performance of certain types of activity.
If you are referring to ideas and simultaneously holding that they cannot be owned as they're infinite in supply (with which I agree)
We're referring to the ideas of a specific brain. Far from being infinite, they're an economic resource—scarce and controllable. To say the memories in a person's brain are his doesn't seem like a meaningful argument...
It doesn't matter if they're specific to that brain. Two different brains (or minds, rather) can hold the same idea at once without conflict in use occuring. That is the thrust of Kinsella's argument.
A person's memories and ideas are "theirs" in a very loose sense that they're in their heads, perhaps even its "products". To call it property, however, is to assume that the person in question has the exclusive right of usage over that property. Kinsella argues that because ideas can be held simultaneously without conflict that they're not scarce in the sense that physical resources are and therefore property rights are not required for non-conflict-generating social interaction.
My point is that none of this is really relevant. A NDA isn't so much about asserting ownership over an idea as it is about specifying non-performance of a particular action. Now it may be couched in terms of property over ideas in present arrangements but there is nothing in principle from such a contract being devoid of any such terms.
Semantics aside I understand what you're saying. Hopefully, you understand what I'm saying.
The relevant issue here is whether a contract is "valid". You're saying it may be, I'm saying that what you mean is that the contract is valid subjectively—unless you've reconciled the fact/value dichotomy. In this regard, the contract holds no weight when any party decides to abandon it.
the trade secret would belong to no one or no company, so the trade secret is free for people to use if given access.
a trade secret is not property, and if only property can be stolen, then trade secrets can't be stolen.
say it's a performance contract for 5 million if i don't perform, give me 6 million and i won't perform.
if all i lose is some cash, i'll simply still sell for a profit.
if the amount is sale plus %, good luck finding that, and what will it even look like with competative currency, someone can invent a currency where it only has value with a certain group and one has to be a part of that group for it to have value.
hashem:Paying someone not to talk disclose information is a valid business contract. "Valid" on what grounds? Not any objective grounds, unless you've reconciled the fact/value dichotomy.
"Valid" on what grounds? Not any objective grounds, unless you've reconciled the fact/value dichotomy.
Yes, on objective grounds. The fact/value dichotomy has nothing to do with it. If a person controls themselves, which they objectively do, then whether or not to disseminate information is wholly within their power, and they can freely contract with another to not disclose information for a fee. Come on.
hashem:And since it's only subjectively "valid" according to the whims of the parties involved, then it's invalid whenever a member values it as such—and nobody outside those involved in the contract have any relevance anyway.
This has nothing to do with others outside the contract. I don't know what you think I'm arguing about, but I'm talking about secret knowledge. An NDA is given to someone in advance of him receiving secret knowledge. With the NDA he agrees not to disclose the info given to him or else to pay a fine should he do so. That has nothing to do with other people, other people don't know the secret.
hashem:The relevant issue here is whether a contract is "valid". You're saying it may be, I'm saying that what you mean is that the contract is valid subjectively—unless you've reconciled the fact/value dichotomy. In this regard, the contract holds no weight when any party decides to abandon it.
It is valid because it is voluntary, doesn't violate anyone's rights, is non-fraudulent, and within the capability of the contracting parties. That's all I care about. The only subjectivity in there is what the contract should be about, and I don't care. In principle any contract should be enforceable within those constraints.
Jon Irenicus: A NDA isn't so much about asserting ownership over an idea as it is about specifying non-performance of a particular action. Now it may be couched in terms of property over ideas in present arrangements but there is nothing in principle from such a contract being devoid of any such terms.
Exactly.
cab21: the trade secret would belong to no one or no company, so the trade secret is free for people to use if given access.
You're wrong. In a society without state protections of trade secrets, trade secrets would become actual secrets, as the name implies. Meaning only the company itself would know it and those to whom it reveals it.
cab21:a trade secret is not property, and if only property can be stolen, then trade secrets can't be stolen.
Rothbard used the term 'recipes.' An idea is a recipe, like the idea of how to make something. True, it's not property for it is not scarce. It cannot be stolent. But that doesn't mean that if it's not revealed to you that you can conjure it from air. Also, the transmission of idea is itself a service and can be charged for. Similarly, ideas can actually be scarce if only one person knows it. Scarce may not be the proper term for that. Um. Well. Say someone knew the cure for cancer. Many would be willing to buy it, but only he knows it. He can sell the idea upon first transmission, since only he knows it. He's cornered the market on that idea because he generated it.
You seem to be saying that ideas can be scarce, and simultaneously saying that ideas aren't scarce. Ideas require an origin, and to multiply they require effort and a medium of storage and transmission. The supply of a given idea can be expanded or contracted in very real ways. I don't know what's with all this talk about "ideas aren't scarce resources".
Also, like ice-in-the-summer is not the same economic resource as ice, so ideas-in-my-head are not the same economic resource as ideas. The ideas in my head are scarce and controllable by only me, and are therefore property.
Regarding a contract, my point was merely that its validity is determined by the minds of people, not by the natural laws of chemistry and physics and contracts. As I would expect, you brought up enforcement. So my point in bringing up outside parties was that the contract, being an exchange of ideas between several parties, has no objective validity by definition to the extent that any given members fail to commit, and that no outside parties have any objective authority to enforce it upon someone who doesn't commit. They may enforce it, and society may value that, but the reason contracts have any percieved validity is subjective, it has nothing to do with the laws of physics or chemistry.
hashem: You seem to be saying that ideas can be scarce, and simultaneously saying that ideas aren't scarce. Ideas require an origin, and to multiply they require effort and a medium of storage and transmission. The supply of a given idea can be expanded or contracted in very real ways. I don't know what's with all this talk about "ideas aren't scarce resources".
Ideas aren't scarce, but that doesn't mean everyone knows them immediately. Idea transmission is a regularly purchased product (school, books), so the form those ideas take can be sold as a scarce good. But the idea itself is a genie in the bottle. Its transmission value is in proportion to the number of people that know it and would value it if they did know it.
Thus, if one person knew the cure to cancer, it would be a very valuable thing to him and someone would likely pay a great figure for it. Perhaps the second could pay the first not to transmit the idea anymore, and as part of that agree to pay set damages should he do so. I think that should be perfectly enforceable should he then violate the agreement.
hashem:Regarding a contract, my point was merely that its validity is determined by the minds of people, not by the natural laws of chemistry and physics and contracts. As I would expect, you brought up enforcement. So my point in bringing up outside parties was that the contract, being an exchange of ideas between several parties, has no objective validity by definition to the extent that any given members fail to commit, and that no outside parties have any objective authority to enforce it upon someone who doesn't commit. They may enforce it, and society may value that, but the reason contracts have any percieved validity is subjective, it has nothing to do with the laws of physics or chemistry.
I really don't know why you bothered to bring up that point tho--it's not on topic--except that you have this weird axe to grind about a minor philosophical issue.
Are you attacking all contract as voidable without consequences, or just NDAs?
Ideas aren't scarce, but that doesn't mean everyone knows them immediately.
I think that's a ludicrous contradictory thing to say, but I'm willing to hear you out. Please elaborate, while addressing the following: like ice-in-the-summer is not the same economic resource as ice, so ideas-in-my-head are not the same economic resource as ideas. The ideas in my head are controllable by only me, and are therefore my property. Your example of a book doesn't disprove that—even books are scarce resources. Is water not scarce to starving African kids simply because they don't have immediate access to it?
I think that should be perfectly enforceable
Precisely. Subjectively valid.
I really don't know why you bothered to bring up that point tho--it's not on topic
It was in response to an assertion you made, so it's off topic to the extent that you were off topic when you made the statement. To bring it on topic, I was originally here to point out an answer to the OP which doesn't require violence and ridiculous myths about "validity" of contracts.
I think that's a false dichotomy or a red herring so I'm doubting your comprehension of my argument. Whether consequences happen have nothing to do with whether a contract is objectively valid. I can simply imagine (and have real world examples of) solutions that don't require contracts or violence. Regarding NDA's, as with any other contract, I think they have value to those who value them. By definition, as soon as someone fails to follow through, the contract ceases to exist to that extent—which brings us to another point regarding something you said:
A book is not an idea any more than the record of a contract is the contract itself. They are symbols for transmission of ideas. The contract, as with all ideas, is subjective, and ceases to exist when and to the extent that some party ceases to maintain it.
hashem: Ideas aren't scarce, but that doesn't mean everyone knows them immediately. I think that's a ludicrous contradictory thing to say, but I'm willing to hear you out. Please elaborate, while addressing the following: like ice-in-the-summer is not the same economic resource as ice, so ideas-in-my-head are not the same economic resource as ideas.
I think that's a ludicrous contradictory thing to say, but I'm willing to hear you out. Please elaborate, while addressing the following: like ice-in-the-summer is not the same economic resource as ice, so ideas-in-my-head are not the same economic resource as ideas.
How is it ludicrous or contradictory? Once an idea known it's not scarce. You can give it away infinitely without diminishing your knowledge of that idea. But you first have to learn the idea. It's a rather simple concept.
Ideas in the abstract are just a concept. Ideas in your head are an economic recipe, but the scarce resource is the head that knows the idea, ie: people.
hashem:The ideas in my head are controllable by only me, and are therefore my property.
Your head is your property. But you don't control an idea unless you're the only one who knows it, and the extent of your control is your decision to transmit that knowledge or not. After you've transmitted it, you have no control over what the other does with it.
hashem:Your example of a book doesn't disprove that—even books are scarce resources.
That's my point, books are scarce. But the ideas in them are not because they're infinitely copyable.
hashem:I think that should be perfectly enforceable Precisely. Subjectively valid.
In the sense that everything is subjective. Sure. Whatever you wanna say, Hashem. My point was that it doesn't violate any principle which is known to be contrary to contractability.
hashem:Are you attacking all contract as voidable without consequences, or just NDAs? I think that's a false dichotomy or a red herring so I'm doubting your comprehension of my argument. Whether consequences happen have nothing to do with whether a contract is objectively valid.
I think that's a false dichotomy or a red herring so I'm doubting your comprehension of my argument. Whether consequences happen have nothing to do with whether a contract is objectively valid.
I don't think anyone's claiming there's such a thing as an objectively valid contract. However, I think that within the corpus of libertarian ideals, that some contracts are valid and some are not. Why you decided to strip that libertarian context out of my statement I have no idea, except that, again, you continue to grind this silly axe of yours over a minor philosophic point. I made that statement in the same sense that I have made the statement that slavery contracts would not be valid contracts.
The unstated and assumed portion there is "...given basic rights." The assertion then is not one of objectively valid contracts but whether anything in the proposed contract would violate the principles of basic rights.
hashem:Regarding NDA's, as with any other contract, I think they have value to those who value them. By definition, as soon as someone fails to follow through, the contract ceases to exist to that extent
It doesn't cease to exist so much as it has now been broken, and a tort is then possible.
hashem:A book is not an idea any more than the record of a contract is the contract itself. They are symbols for transmission of ideas. The contract, as with all ideas, is subjective, and ceases to exist when and to the extent that some party ceases to maintain it.
I would disagree that it "ceases to exist", rather I would say that it's failed to be fulfilled. Even a completed contract does not "cease to exist."
If you agree to sell me a barrel of fish for $25 and I give you $25 and you break the contract and walk away, the contract doesn't magically disappear. You've now stolen $25. Objectively stolen. Not subjectively.
All your subjectivist-fetishes disappear in the face of an objective reality that is perceived subjectively. Doesn't mean the objective isn't there.