All Posts Tagged With: "Patents"

Do Patents Encourage or Hinder Innovation? The Case of the Steam Engine

Today one of the most controversial issues in economic policy is that of patent law. Is a patent just an extension of property rights to the realm of ideas? Or is it an unwarranted interference by the government into the rights of individuals?

1Dec2008 | Michele Boldrin, David K. Levine, and Alessandro Nuvolari | 5 comments | Continued

Hierarchy or the Market

Kevin Carson is the author of Studies in Mutualist Political Economy. He blogs at Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism.
In an article in last June’s Freeman, I applied some ideas from the socialist-calculation debate to the private corporation and examined the extent to which it is an island of calculational chaos in the market economy. I’d [...]

1Apr2008 | Kevin Carson | 0 comments | Continued

Mises on Copyrights

The widespread reproduction and “sharing” of copyrighted music on the Internet led a friend to ask me what Ludwig von Mises would have thought about the situation. The more I pondered the question, the more I concluded that Mises would have considered this just another case where copyright law must play catch-up with new technology.
Many [...]

1Jun2004 | Bettina Bien Greaves | 0 comments | Continued