Against Intellectual Monopoly

theories explaining why intellectual monopoly is
a socially valuable institutions - theories other than the large indivisibilitycum-small demand discussed in Chapter 6 - need not be a waste of
time; rather, it serves three purposes. First, to debunk phony arguments
widely used by lobbying groups, making clear to everyone that intellectual
monopoly is not "obviously" or "logically" good. Second, to point at data
that should be collected and empirical evidence that should be examined to
assess whether patents and copyrights serve any useful social purpose. Third,
understanding why most theories that support intellectual monopoly are
jumbled is instrumental to obstruct policies meant to "improve" the functioning of the intellectual property system, and that are grounded upon
such theories.
Private Property and Public Goods
    A traditional argument in favor of intellectual monopoly is that the ownership of ideas is no different from the ownership of houses, cars, and other
forms of private property. Certainly we agree - and not all opponents of
intellectual property do - that private property can be a good thing. As an
example of what goes wrong without private property in land and houses,
we previously pointed to the situation in Zimbabwe. To elaborate:
    "Last Saturday morning, a war veteran named Wind, accompanied by a bunch of
young men, arrived on my farm in the morning. He gave my tenants and their young children two days to get off the farm and out of the house as he says it now
belongs to him. Wind then went over the road and issued a verbal eviction order
to my neighbors and then to the family living in their cottage," Buckle said. "These
eviction orders were all non-negotiable and backed up by threats of violence. One
of the threats was to throw a 4-year-old deaf child into a silage pit. Wind and his
men then went to the houses of all the people who live and work on these farms.
All the men, women and children were also ordered out. Wind closed the trading
store on my farm and said it was now his. He ordered that all the dairy cows on one
of the farms and all the laying hens on the other farm were not to be moved as they
now belong to him." 2

    What are the consequences of the massive expropriation of private property
that has been taking place in Zimbabwe for years? The following news
item from the Zimbabwe Independent shows the economic devastation that
occurs when there is no incentive to work your land because it maybe seized
by thugs at any moment:
    GDP to decline by 11.5
    The statistics released last week show that real GDP declined by 5% in 2000, 7.5%
in 2001, and 11.9% in 2002. They are forecast to decline by a further 11.5% this
year. 3
    So, one maybe tempted to conclude, if the incentive to work and develop
your land depends on your exclusive right to it, should not exclusive ownership of your idea be granted to you to provide for the appropriate incentives
to develop it? Unfortunately, this analogy between idea and land is not a
good one.
    Consider the exclusive right to sell cars. From a legal point of view, there
is nothing to prevent the government from giving me this as a property
right. As with any property, I could sell or license the right - I could
authorize General Motors and Ford to sell cars in exchange for fees; I could
sell my exclusive franchise to Donald Trump; I could create a shrink-wrap
agreement that anyone who purchased a car would have to agree to get off
the road whenever I drove my car down the street. Pretty obviously this is
a terrible idea, but the analogy between the exclusive right to sell cars and
land is no different from the analogy between property of idea and property
of land.
    All property, then, is not created equal. There is good property - property
of land and cars - which leads to competition. And there is bad property -
property of ideas - which leads to monopoly. The difference between the
two is not so difficult to see: granting me the exclusive right to sell cars gives
me a property right over customers. That is, it gives me the right to tell my customers that they cannot do business with someone else. Economists
agree that this is a terrible idea. Once upon a time, even The Economist
thought so:

    The granting [of] patents "inflames cupidity", excites fraud, stimulates men to run
after schemes that may enable them to levy a tax on the public, begets disputes and
quarrels betwixt inventors, provokes endless