From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Fri Mar 07 2003 - 18:23:33 MST
> >The idea that inventors inherently deserve reward is the communist
> >fallacy of the labor theory of value: the totally discredited idea that
> No. Inventors do deserve reward for their efforts. But not unlimited
> reward, and in most areas of endeavor not a monopoly. Of course, this
> is conditional upon a meaning for the word "deserve". I tend to think
> of it as meaning something like "it is in society's best interest to
> reward this individual to achieve that worthy goal",
No effort of any kind "deserves" reward unless someone wanted it. If
a craftsman spends ten years of his life to build a perfect widget that
no one wants to buy, then he has wasted ten years of his life and
doesn't deserve anything for his efforts. That's the free market.
The same applies to invention: if nobody wanted it, the inventor has
no reason to expect any reward.
> >the value of a thing is inherent in its creation. That's simply not
> >true, and policies based on that idea are doomed to failure, as all
> >socialist systems have been. Value is created by /demand/, and so what
>
> Not necessarily. Demand by whom? If the people who want, or perhaps
> need, the item can't pay for it that doesn't make it worthless.
Yes, it does exactly that. A thing is worth precisely what someone is
willing to pay for it. That's capitalism 101. I don't care how
interesting your gadget is, or how much work you put into it, if you
can't find even one buyer, then it is worthless by definition.
> Consider, e.g, a smallpox vaccine. Nearly no individual wants it, but
What? Surely you can't be serious. I had a smallpox vaccination in
1973 for which I paid the doctor a fee; therefore, I wanted it, and it
was worth that fee. Pretty simple, really.
Your other example was about something no one can /afford/ to buy, and
that's a special case, but still Econ 101: if the price at which the
seller is willing to sell is higher than the price offered by any buyer,
then the thing still has the value of the buy offers, even though the
seller refuses to go through with the deal.
> >should be rewarded is the ability to fulfill demand, whether by
> >innovation or other means. Without patents, innovation will still be
> >rewarded /when it fulfills a demand/, but not otherwise, which is how
> >it should be.
>
> Demand... that's the kind of argument that causes people to consider
> heroin and tobacco valuable, when by my measure they have a negative value.
Of course heroin and tobacco are valuable. Your moral prejudices
have no effect on economic reality. They may have negative value /to you/,
and you will therefore not buy them. But they clearly have value to
those who do buy them.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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