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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 491.
https://youtu.be/lfjpoKCWBDA
I've known Paul Cwik, Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Mount Olive and fellow of the Mises Institute since I started attending the Austrian Scholars Conference in 1995. He is an Austrian and libertarian of sorts but had some qualms with my anti-IP writing so presented a paper "Is There Room for Intellectual Property Rights in Austrian Economics?" at the Austrian Scholars Conference in 2008, which I attended and commented on. After 18 years we finally decided to get around to talking about this. I had planned on an hour but we ended up talking for 3. It turns out we were old friends but not that close; we didn't know much about each other. So the first 30-50 minutes or so is more preliminary discussion.
To his credit, he read a good deal of the huge deluge of material I sent to read up on and asked many very good questions. He did not engage in intentional equivocation that is characteristic of many on the pro-IP side, and he was reasonable in conceding many of my points and was willing to ponder my push back.
I was hoping to get him to see the light, since I have in person seen many people change their minds on IP after a long discussion but have never had it happen while recording. We did not resolve the issue, partly because we just didn't have enough time to keep going, but I think we made some progress. Maybe we will have a Part 2 later. Who knows.
For now, some relevant links pertaining to some of the topics discussed. I will organize this better later.
(Not to be confused with Bryan Cwik, who also has opinions on IP: “Good Ideas is Pretty Scarce”; Bryan Cwik, "Property Rights in Non‐rival Goods" (2, 3, 4); "Labor as the Basis for Intellectual Property Rights" (2; 3); Gamrot, Labor as the Basis for Intellectual Property Rights: Against Cwik.)
IP Proponents Do Not Even Know The Difference Between Patent, Copyright, Trademark …
Types of Intellectual Property
It is impossible to own ideas
Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes
The “Ontology” Mistake of Libertarian Creationists
See the Appendix to What Libertarianism Is: section “Concept and Definition of “Property””
The Structural Unity of Real and Intellectual Property
Gamrot, Labor as the Basis for Intellectual Property Rights: Against Cwik
The “Ontology” Mistake of Libertarian Creationists
Objectivists: “All Property is Intellectual Property”
A Recurring Fallacy: “IP is a Purer Form of Property than Material Resources”
New Working Paper: Machan on IP
“Aggression” versus “Harm” in Libertarianism
Kinsella v. Schulman on Logorights and IP
The Nature, Properties, and Characteristics of Goods (Igloo Coolers case)
Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach
Libertarian Answer Man: Bitcoin and Fraud
KOL274 | Nobody Owns Bitcoin (PFS 2019)
On Property Rights in Superabundant Bananas and Property Rights as Normative Support for Possession
Libertarian Answer Man: Self-ownership for slaves and Crusoe; and Yiannopoulos on Accurate Analysis and the term “Property”; Mises distinguishing between juristic and economic categories of “ownership”
There are No Good Arguments for Intellectual Property
Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property (and trademark)
KOL207 | Patent, Copyright, and Trademark Are Not About Plagiarism, Theft, Fraud, or Contract
KOL020 | “Libertarian Legal Theory: Property, Conflict, and Society: Lecture 3: Applications I: Legal Systems, Contract, Fraud” (Mises Academy, 2011)
Copying vs. Plagiarism: A Recent Illustration—Grau vs. Hernandez on Milei
Re the practice of attribution and credit: see Stephan Kinsella, “Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe: An Indispensable Framework,” in Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Houston: Papinian Press and Property and Freedom Society, 2026), in the section “Excursus: The Role of Ideas in Human Action”
“Copying, Patent Infringement, Copyright Infringement are not “Theft”, Stealing, Piracy, Plagiarism, Knocking Off, Ripping Off“
Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes
Stop calling patent and copyright “property”; stop calling copying “theft” and “piracy”
IP Proponents Do Not Even Know The Difference Between Patent, Copyright, Trademark …
Fraud:
A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability, Part III.E
“The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract,” Part IV.C
Labor and Leisure
Rothbard on the Main Fallacy of our Time: Marx’s Labor Theory of Value
KOL037 | Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory
“Hume on Intellectual Property and the Problematic “Labor” Metaphor”
Cordato and Kirzner on Intellectual Property
Labor, Value, Metaphors, Locke, Intellectual Property
Concise Tweet on the Problem with IP
Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward: Part IV.D: "Overreliance on “labor” metaphors also leads to confusion about IP. Locke correctly argued that the first person to “mix his labor with” an unowned resource owns it, since he thereby establishes an objective link to the resource which gives him a better claim to it than latecomers.[55] However, Locke based his argument on the confused and unnecessary idea that a person “owns” his labor and “therefore” owns resources that he mixes it with. But labor is not owned—it is an action, something a person performs with his body, which he does own—and this assumption is not needed for the Lockean labor-mixture argument to work.[56] This mistaken notion leads some people to favor IP because they figure that if you own a scarce resource because you mix your labor with it, you also own useful ideas that are produced with your labor. The related Smith-Ricardo-Marx labor theory of value, which underlies Marxism and socialism, is also sometimes used to support IP, as when people argue that if you work or labor, you “deserve” some kind of reward or profit. All this focus on labor must be rejected as overly metaphorical and confused, and, frankly, Marxian.[57]"
On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws: p. 632
Libertarianism After Fifty Years: What Have We Learned?, p. 687
Creationism:
Libertarian and Lockean Creationism: Creation As a Source of Wealth, not Property Right
Libertarian Creationism
KOL012 | “The Intellectual Property Quagmire, or, The Perils of Libertarian Creationism,” Austrian Scholars Conference 2008
KOL037 | Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory
Update: someone asked me:
Dear, Mr. Kinsella
First of all, thank you for your generosity in sharing your knowledge online. I've learned an enormous amount from the lectures and writings you've made available.
My question concerns a passing comment you made in your conversation with Paul Cwik. Around 2:28:55, you said, "I'm skeptical of the concept of Cantillon, but that's my Austrian heresy." and then moved on without returning to it. I wished you had because I've searched your site without finding a fuller treatment, and I don't recall any other Austrian expressing doubt regarding the Cantillon effect.
As I understand the Cantillon effect: when new money is created (whether fiat or commodity), those who receive it first can spend it at prevailing prices before the market adjusts to the higher money supply. This causes economic suffering for those farthest away from the new money. Under the gold standard, this is seen as unfortunate but simply the way of things; under fiat, the new money is completely arbitrary and hence the Cantillon effect is one of the main things the Austrians point to when arguing against fiat currency.
This all seems perfectly valid to me so I would be grateful if you can elaborate on why you said you were "skeptical" of Cantillon.
My response:
because it seems to me focus on a minor effect. The problem wtih the state printing money is not that hte first people get it first. It's that the state gets to spend it. That is what causes inflation and in effect transfers wealth from the populace to the dollar-printer. As an example suppose th US gov has zero taxes and spends $1T a year on defense: buying tanks, jets, ships. It prints $1T and just spends it: it buys the equipment with this new money. It gets $1T worth of stuff for free. Who pays for it? Everryone else b/c the price level goes up. The value of their money held goes down in purchasing power. This is not because the sellers of the jets get the all the benefit. If I spend $1T of new money on a $1T defense system, the seller doens't make $1T. They have costs. So they might make 7% profit off of their $930M costs. The beneficiary of the "free stuff" is not the defense contractor but the state: it gets stuff for free by robbing the general population of money hodlers. The fact that the airplane manufacturer "gets the money first' doesn't change the fact--not much anyway--that basically they have to buy serivce and materials to make the goods and then they get the payment from the state and they only make a normal profit, just like anone else would.
but I am not 100% sure about this
Part III.C.2
C. Contract and Fraud Arguments for IP
Fraud and Plagiarism
“Copying, Patent Infringement, Copyright Infringement are not “Theft”, Stealing, Piracy, Plagiarism, Knocking Off, Ripping Off“
IP by Contract
I discuss problems with the contractual argument for IP in:
Kinsella (2008, pp. 51–55) — Against Intellectual Property
Kinsella, April 8, 2025. “KOL458 | Patent and Copyright versus Innovation, Competition, and Property Rights (APEE 2025).” Kinsella on Liberty Podcast. Link
Kinsella, Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society, Part III.C
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