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Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

But this "capitalist science" has already existed for ages, hasn't it? Plenty of companies do science, monopolize the results through patents, and exploit them for private profit. That's capitalist science.

> The economic structure of basic science is currently socialist, funded by the public at large through taxes for the benefit of the public at large.

Yes, but increasingly less so. The public may fund it, but too much of the results get copyrighted by Elsevier and patented by other parties.

> Capitalist science will better align the incentives of scientists with taxpayer interests,

No it won't. It will align the incentives of scientists with the interests of corporations.

> channel more money into basic science, lower your taxes, and generally improve the quality of your life.

Nice talk. I think you're trying to sell me something, but I'm not buying it.

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Patents are a legal construct designed by and for corporations for their benefit. To argue that they are somehow not capitalist is somewhat disingenuous isn't it?

It always bothers me when I see absolutist statements such as this one. Are you claiming that there's some plausible 'pure-capitalism' existent outside of all laws?

Isn't the basis of capitalism itself wholly dependent on the governmental construct called currency? What about policing and a court system? It's hard to imagine anything approximating the modern idea of trade without those functions.

When you boil things down, 'government' is just a set of rules we all agree to. Capitalism is a set of rules we agree to in the area of trade. These are inexorably linked ideas.

> To argue that they are somehow not capitalist is somewhat disingenuous isn't it?

There is even a term for this: "laissez faire capitalism". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

> Isn't the basis of capitalism itself wholly dependent on the governmental construct called currency?

No, we've used gold for hundreds of years without any government intervention. Fiat money is relatively recent invention.

More recent example: bitcoin, which works as currency without any governments.

> It's hard to imagine anything approximating the modern idea of trade without those functions.

Yes, but these services can be provided through free market. They'll become more cheap and available. Take for example government-run courts: they are slow, inefficient and expensive(which is the reason why patent trolling is viable: in many cases it is cheaper to hand some money to at troll instead of trying to resolve a conflict using government system).

True, such ideas may seem radical to you(No government, won't there be violence and chaos?!). If you want to know how such system will work, take a look at Murray Rothbard's awesome book "For a new liberty: libertarian manifesto" mises.org/rothbard/foranewlb.pdf . There is a chapter "The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts", which you'll enjoy.

>Patents are a legal construct designed by and for corporations for their benefit. To argue that they are somehow not capitalist is somewhat disingenuous isn't it?

Some people distinguish between free market capitalism and crony capitalism. Others don't. Some of the people who make the distinction do not consider crony capitalism to be capitalism. That is why you will see people who say things like patents are not capitalist or Too big to fail is anti-capitalist.

Property rights are a purely governmental construct. But without them, capitalism doesn't work.

Not sure why intellectual property is considered any different.

> Property rights are a purely governmental construct.

purely governmental? Really? Property rights exist wherever people successfully claim stuff and are willing to defend their claim. Even dogs have property rights (and help us have them!). The idea of property is a social construct, not a government one. When it comes to land, the government role started by setting up a system where people could register the pre-existing territorial claims they'd made under the local customs, thereby making it easier to arbitrate disputes. But you don't need government to do either of those functions. (Neither running a registry nor arbitrating a dispute requires a monopoly of force, so both of those can be done privately. And have been, and sometimes still are.)

Property rights are for protecting scarce resources. Intellectual property is not a scarce resource.

That's why capitalist science is a stupid idea in the first place, but it's still how the current system works. Corporations like artificial scarcity, so stuff can be owned, capitalized and exploited for profit.

> Corporations like artificial scarcity, so stuff can be owned, capitalized and exploited for profit.

That may be true of some corporations (most notably in companies that have already achieved success and thus have an incentive to maintain the status quo), but it's not a universal rule [1] and patents aren't the only method of maintaining artificial scarcity [2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GE...

[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-patents-2012-11

The usual argument is that they are, in economic terms, non-rivalrous and non-scarce.

Property rights are anathema to government construct. The state typically allows illusory property rights, but ultimately can and will defy these and treat them as a non-absolute concept.

For instance, you are your own property, but the state defies this by extorting taxation from you. They defy you, and therefore your property in order to gain value from your work.

Your work is also a result of your time, expertise and effort, therefore your property. So already tax defies your property rights in two different ways.

> Property rights are anathema to government construct

That's a big word there, and I suspect it doesn't mean what you think it means. Property rights are a government construct. It's one of the primary reasons why governments exist. Without government to enforce these rights, you have no real claim on what you consider yours. Anyone can come along and take it away, and the only recourse you have is to steal it back, or steal something similar from someone else.

Since that's not a very ideal situation, thousands of years ago we decided not to do that anymore, and anyone who still did it, would be punished. That's basically what government is (and I'm amazed I'm even explaining this to anyone over 8 years old).

> Without government to enforce these rights, you have no real claim on what you consider yours. Anyone can come along and take it away, and the only recourse you have is to steal it back, or steal something similar from someone else. [...] That's basically what government is (and I'm amazed I'm even explaining this to anyone over 8 years old)

What you are saying is indeed a common conventional wisdom opinion taught in grade school. Thus, people who believe differently might do so because they've thought more about it than an 8-year-old. Perhaps they've looked into the history or the economics of the situation.

To remedy your amazement I recommend reading _The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without The State_ by Bruce Benson: http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/...

And also perhaps _The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism_ by David Friedman (which just went out of print - there's a new edition in process but in the meantime you can read the old one for free on the web in pdf form here: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

With or without government to enforce your rights, you can make it hard for people to take stuff away - and even in a government based system we expect you to do that to some degree. You can lock stuff up - put it behind walls and gates. You can guard it yourself. You can get a dog. You can ask or pay other people to guard it. You can install streaming security cameras to help identify miscreants. You can pay private patrols. (There are more private guards than public police in the US) But if somebody still takes your stuff despite your best efforts to protect it, there are several nongovernmental ways to deal with the problem. Some of which work now in the real world. For instance, there are reputational systems (Reporting somebody to a credit agency for bouncing a check is making use of a private rule-enforcement mechanism. As is reporting a bad doctor to their certification board.) When dealing with businesses or known individuals you can post a bond with a third party or use an escrow agency. Or appeal to a private arbitrator - agreements between diamond merchants in NYC are often made on a handshake and handled under Jewish courts and Jewish law that have nothing to do with the government system.)

There are other mechanisms that could work but are currently barred or restricted by the government. Competitive private protection agencies could serve most of the same role, were they allowed to do so.

It's true that there's no perfect way to defend property without government. But there's also no perfect way to defend it with government. There are pluses and minuses. A private competitive legal system would be more complex, less predictable. But the downside risk of depending on a single monopoly provider for any important service is substantial - and not easily dismissed.

> What you are saying is indeed a common conventional wisdom opinion taught in grade school. Thus, people who believe differently might do so because they've thought more about it than an 8-year-old. Perhaps they've looked into the history or the economics of the situation.

Congratulations on that cheap blow suggesting there's something childish and immature about understanding history, government and law.

> With or without government to enforce your rights, you can make it hard for people to take stuff away - and even in a government based system we expect you to do that to some degree. You can lock stuff up - put it behind walls and gates. You can guard it yourself. You can get a dog. You can ask or pay other people to guard it. You can install streaming security cameras to help identify miscreants. You can pay private patrols.

You do realize that this means only the rich and powerful can defend their property, right? You create a system of might makes right, with the rich and powerful as substitute government. And if you lack the power to defend your property from those more powerful than you, you need the protection form someone who does, which leads to feudalism. Feudalism can certainly work, but it's not preferable to the rule of law, with justice for rich and poor alike.

> You do realize that this means only the rich and powerful can defend their property, right?

Nope, I don't realize that at all. It's a common objection made by people who don't understand how private legal systems work and have never looked into it. You'd know better if you had read the books I recommended above.

There is no way to perfectly defend property - "utopia is not an option" - but you can raise the cost to the criminal in various ways. The cheapest is by buying a lock. Even very poor people can and do have locks on their doors or bars on their windows. Another cheap option is to organize a volunteer community watch program. A little more expensive but still quite doable is for any GROUP of people to form a neighborhood association which hires a guard for the neighborhood - this has often been done by a local merchant's association. The poor currently pay a rather large amount of money for "protection" in the form of police salaries paid via sales tax and property tax - but they don't GET protection for their money! The government-run police primarily serve the interests of the rich and powerful and their own interests - they don't do much to protect the poor. In a private system you get what you pay for and pay for what you get - people who hired police protection would actually GET police protection.

> You create a system of might makes right

Nope. In fact, putting government in charge is a system of might makes right, one prone to terrible abuses. Decentralizing power makes it less prone to abuse. I'm talking about actual rule of law, which does protect the rich and poor alike.

> And if you lack the power to defend your property from those more powerful than you, you need the protection form someone who does, which leads to feudalism

Here's another option: Consider that by social convention when you aggress against me I have a claim against you for damages. Suppose I can sell that claim. If I can afford to prosecute you directly I do so; if not, I sell my claim against you to someone who is more powerful. But selling a claim is an ordinary business transaction - it doesn't give the buyer any special power over the seller.

(BTW, wikipedia says "There is no broadly accepted modern definition of feudalism". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#Definition )

Tell you what. If you just want to read a SINGLE CHAPTER of MoF that most clearly addresses your concerns, it is quite short, it is titled "POLICE, COURTS, AND LAWS---ON THE MARKET", and it can be read online here:

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freed...

Hey, I'm all for street-level government, but that's still a government. And one that is not powerful enough to stand up to the more powerful gangs or corporations. You will still need a larger structure of organization to defend against the larger threats.

> The government-run police primarily serve the interests of the rich and powerful and their own interests - they don't do much to protect the poor.

That's certainly the case in corrupt countries, but much less so in the less corrupt ones.

> I'm talking about actual rule of law, which does protect the rich and poor alike.

What law? Whose law? Who enforces that law if you don't have a government? Without enforcement, the law is meaningless. With enforcement, you've got a government. There's really nothing in between there.

What you're talking about are different forms of government. Better ones, perhaps. There are definitely a lot of improvements possible (and needed) in our current forms of government, and especially so in the US. But one way or the other, you'll still end up with some form of government.

> Consider that by social convention when you aggress against me I have a claim against you for damages. Suppose I can sell that claim. If I can afford to prosecute you directly I do so; if not, I sell my claim against you to someone who is more powerful. But selling a claim is an ordinary business transaction - it doesn't give the buyer any special power over the seller.

Sounds interesting, but to prosecute, you still need courts, you still need enforcement, and that means you still need government. (By the way, this already exists. Some legal claims have gone to the stock market even.)

> If you just want to read a SINGLE CHAPTER of MoF that most clearly addresses your concerns, it is quite short, it is titled "POLICE, COURTS, AND LAWS---ON THE MARKET",

I read it, and I admit, in my teens, I had a similar sort of wishful thinking about ideal societies, but it's ignoring a couple of issues.

Firstly, it's basically a kind of for-profit government. Will that ultimately be better? Look at how many companies screw their customers now, often without their customers noticing. Of course once customers notice, they can switch, _if_ there is sufficient competition. But companies love merging, and at some point, a powerful protection agency can dictate terms to smaller agencies. The largest agencies can form a cartel to concentrate and divide even more power. And sure, you can switch to a small, independent agency, but will they be able to protect you against the big guys? Maybe if enough people switch, but that takes time.

In the end, you're trying to play one protection racket against another protection racket, but in the end, you're still stuck with a protection racket.

Let's first try to get honest competition working in something fairly innocuous like telecommunication, before we start giving those companies real power, okay?

Sadly, a single chapter doesn't make the whole argument - you do kind of need to read the whole book. But your immediate objection is covered in the immediately following chapter, called "The Stability Problem". That one doesn't seem to have been webbed as a single page, but you can go to the book pdf, search for "the stability problem" in the index and click the link to jump right there. http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

From the intro: > Anyone with a little imagination can dream up a radical new structure for society, anarcho-capitalist or otherwise. The question is, will it work? Most people, when they hear my description of anarcho-capitalism for the first time, immediately explain to me two or three reasons why it won't. Most of their arguments can be reduced to two: The system will be at the mercy of the mafia, which can establish its own 'protection agency' or take over existing ones and convert them into protection rackets. Or else the protection agencies will realize that theft is more profitable than business, get together, and become a government.

The text that follows explores and answers that objection, always keeping in mind that utopia is not an option - our existing system already is a cartel that screws its customers in many ways and is very hard to hold accountable for its actions. "perfect" isn't an option, but "better" might be achievable.

From the abstract: "This socialist system should be augmented by a capitalist system, in which basic science is also funded by private investors who reap financial benefit from the sale of subsequent technologies based on the knowledge obtained from the research funded by their investments."

> Nope, patents are purely a governmental construct.

Exactly. They are a government construct to enable the capitalization of science.

(Note: the fact that it's a government construct does not contradict anything I said.)

>> The economic structure of basic science is currently socialist,

> Yes, but increasingly less so.

IMO opinion the real problem isn't that basic science is becoming less publicly available as much as it's becoming less basic, and really less science also.

If "capitalist science" meaning holding scientists to the same production quotas that Frederick Taylor gave steel workers, then above and beyond the problems seen with steel workers, there's the additional problem that bad science drives out good since it's easier to produce.

The public may fund it, but too much of the results get copyrighted by Elsevier and patented by other parties.

Though it is lamentable that publicly funded research papers are often encumbered by a fee for access, the general knowledge contained within is still free for the public benefit.

Furthermore, the content within most papers is not patented or even patentable.

His fundamental assessment is still true: publicly funded science is currently a socialist enterprise.

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