Capital Letters
Two Libertarianisms
To the Editor:
Jim Peron, in “Are There Two Libertarianisms?” (June 2001), sees moralism and consequentialism as two sides of a coin. He writes, “A free society is not only right but it works.” Surely there is mutual support between them. Nonetheless, there is a fundamental divide as to primacy. Moralism aims at enhancement of the inner man, while consequentialism seeks material welfare. Moralism operates through conscience, while consequentialism operates through utilitarian needs. The former recognizes our inalienable rights; the latter does not. To not grasp such fundamental differences, but to only see their joint advantage, paints Mr. Peron as a consequentialist. Yet let us note that even if one were a consequentialist, he should advocate moralism. No one will go to the barricades to increase his material benefits. Only moralists will pledge “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
—ALLEN WEINGARTEN
Morristown, N.J.
Jim Peron replies:
I think Mr. Weingarten has missed the point I was making. I do not think that there is just a mutual support between moralism and consequentialism, but that the two are virtually one and the same thing just looked at from different angles. Certain positions are moral, while others are immoral, precisely because they lead to specific results. Those results rest on the nature of reality and are thus beyond human control. If we lived in a different reality where socialism led to prosperity and human rights, while capitalism did the opposite, then socialism would be the moral alternative between the two. Surely the results are crucial in determining the morality of an action.
Should Children Be Denied the Fruits of Civilization?
To the Editor:
It was a pleasure to read Aeon Skoble’s “It Just Ain’t So!” in the July Ideas on Liberty. As Professor Skoble rightly pointed out, people have a right to dispose of their legitimately acquired property in any way they choose, and an inheritance tax infringes on that right.
I would add to Professor Skoble’s argument just one point. The notion that children should not receive the benefit of whatever their parents worked to accumulate is akin to forcing children to reinvent the wheel. Why should everyone have to start over at ground zero? Part of the point of civilization is that its progress can be given to its inheritors, so that they can start with a leg up over the previous generations. It seems absurd to want them to start from scratch all over again.
Look at the same point another way: If we don’t want some children to enjoy the inherited benefits of wealth that other children cannot, then why should we let them enjoy other benefits? Shouldn’t we also bar the use of medical treatments that previous generations have made available? After all, some will have access to life-saving medicines that others will not; so perhaps all such medicines should be banned. Similarly with other technologies—like automobiles, televisions, telephones, faxes, computers—for some will inevitably have nicer ones than others. Indeed, to be perfectly fair to all and to ensure that no one enjoys any benefit that he did not personally earn, perhaps we should raze all cities, stamp out all civilization, burn all books, and return all humans to the field or the bush alone so that they can survive or not on their own.
I hope the absurdity of this is clear. Not only do we have a right, as Professor Skoble argues, to pass along to our children what we have earned, but inheritance indeed contains the accumulated knowledge and blueprint of civilization; we imperil our children if we withhold that from them.
Department of Philosophy
University of Alabama
Copyright by Contract?
To the Editor:
Regarding Ilana Mercer’s article, “Rights in Ideas Infringe Rights in Tangible Property” (July), copyright and patent should be distinguished. Murray Rothbard, in Man, Economy, and State, points out that copyright is consistent with a free market but patent is not, for if several people independently create similar work, each can copyright it, whereas a patent bestows rights only on the first patent holder. A seller, Rothbard says, has a natural right to place limits on a product’s reproduction and sale via a copyright, which is tantamount to a contract that the buyer agrees to. Since the buyer knows this up front, there is no intimidation, force, or coercion, nor any wealth redistribution as Mercer alleges. Actually, similar limitations are common in free markets. Renters often agree not to sublet. Buyers buy property with restrictive covenants. Flyers buy flights that restrict their actions aboard the aircraft.
Granted, the state has fouled up copyright law and its administration, overstepping its proper bounds, as Mercer asserts. But in a libertarian society, I predict copyright law would survive.
—MICHAEL S. ROZEFF
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Ilana Mercer replies:
When I buy a book under the Rothbard bundle-of-rights idea, I own the tangible book, but I purchase with it the obligation not to reproduce it. Imagine a bundle of rights we call property from which we tease out and separate “the right to copy.” This right is retained by the original producer. As intellectual property scholar Tom Palmer deftly points out, however, if the producer can retain the right to copy, the same must apply, for instance, to the right to remember.
While contracts bind only parties to the agreement, this arrangement binds any and all. How did Rothbard justify extending an ostensible copyright contract to third parties? A third party who stumbles on the book is bound by copyright because, in his words, “no one can acquire a greater property title in something than has already been given away or sold.”
Stephan Kinsella points out that this error is the outcome of Rothbard’s unusual straying from the Lockean principles of homesteading and from scarcity as the hallmark of property. As Kinsella and Palmer note, it is occupancy, and, in particular, the first-occupancy homesteading rule that confers ownership over tangible things. As my article pointed out, intellectual property law allows a distant stranger—the writer of the book or the inventor of a mousetrap—to partially homestead the property of others. This “second homesteading rule” conflicts with the first.
To assert a property right over a process or idea is invariably to claim a right over the liberty and property of others. Conversely, as Palmer writes, “Property rights in tangible objects do not restrict liberty at all—they simply restrain action.”
Capital Letters
We will print the most interesting and provocative letters we receive regarding Ideas on Liberty articles and the issues they raise. Brevity is encouraged; longer letters may be edited because of space limitations. Address your letters to: Ideas on Liberty, FEE, 30 S. Broadway, Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533; e-mail: iol@fee.org fax: 914-591-8910.
