Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 076.
IP Debate with Chris (aka "Sid Non-Vicious") LeRoux, hosted by James Cox. LeRoux claims to be an anarcho-capitalist and former Randian but not a libertarian (he doesn't like labels, you see). He was recently arguing kinda for IP-but-not-really on Shanklin's podcast (see below), and contacted me about these issues. As you can see from the "debate" it's not clear what his position is or why he even wanted to debate me, or what he really disagrees with me on, but, .... here it is. Cox did a good guy trying to moderate, but it ended up being a mess, as it always is with people that are not clear on basic libertarian concepts and not totally opposed to IP.
Transcript below.
Relevant links:
How We Come To Own Ourselves, Mises Daily (Sep. 7, 2006) (Mises.org blog discussion; audio version)
A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability, Journal of Libertarian Studies 17, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 11-37 [based on paper presented at Law and Economics panel, Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn, Alabama (April 17, 1999)]
“Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes,” Mises Economics Blog (June 23, 2011) (C4SIF)
Hoppe, chs. 1-2 of A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism
Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach
The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld
The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression
The Libertarian View on Fine Print, Shrinkwrap, Clickwrap
Youtube:
https://youtu.be/14POluaBwqU
James Cox's original Youtube:
https://youtu.be/wgJOeWU1Bek
TRANSCRIPT
IP Debate with Chris LeRoux
Stephan Kinsella and Chris LeRoux
Aug. 30, 2013
00:00:01
JAMES COX: Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we’re having an IP debate, and in the right-hand corner is Stephan Kinsella for or against IP. And in the right-hand corner, there is Chris LeRoux, who is for or against IP. We will find out in this debate, and if you want more content or more debates like this, please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Previously, we’ve agreed. We didn’t flip a coin. Stephan Kinsella asked Chris LeRoux here if he wanted to go first.
00:00:36
Chris has agreed to go first. The rules are quite simple. The beginning of this discussing IP, Chris gets to talk for three minutes, and then Stephan Kinsella gets to talk for three minutes. And then Stephan Kinsella gets to ask Chris LeRoux a question of which he has two minutes to answer and vice versa. We plan for a 20-minute talk on this, and then after that, any time that’s needed will be decided. And if everybody decides then we’ll go on for longer. So okay, Chris, three minutes starting now.
00:01:12
CHRIS LEROUX: Well, I believe – Stephen – Stephan and I have had some preliminary discussions. And I believe that he has essentially admitted that my position is correct, and he essentially admitted that contract rights are absolute in an anarcho-capitalist system. And they’re not subject to his interpretation of what’s scarce or rivalrous, his opinion of these things.
00:01:39
Now, these things may be absolute. They may be worthwhile concepts, but all he has is his opinion of them. And he admitted that interfering in a contract in these things that are what he calls IP – I don’t call them that – would be violence, as I said. And the principle is nonviolence. I apply the principle of nonviolence to all property rights, and that’s it. I don’t think he can weasel his way out of that position, and I’ll hand over my time.
00:02:13
JAMES COX: Okay. Hold on a second. Stephan, go.
00:02:18
STEPHAN KINSELLA: Okay, I’m actually not sure what you just said, Chris. You maybe should introduce your position so we can know what it is instead of saying I’ve agreed to it already. People here haven’t read our email exchange. You have told me that you don’t agree with IP. And you don’t like labels, and you’re not a libertarian, but you’re an anarcho-capitalist. You don’t think scarcity is necessary for property rights, and yet you conflate scarcity with lack of abundance, which is not what the technical term means as we use it.
00:02:52
So I actually am not sure what your position is. I – it’s not like you got me to admit tonight that I believe in contract rights. I’ve long been an advocate of contract rights, so if your argument is simply that contracts should be enforceable, I don’t know why this is a debate. I’ve never disagreed with that, and that’s got nothing to do with IP. The mistake people make is they believe that you could come up with something similar to today’s modern IP by using contracts.
00:03:20
And, as I think I’ve showed pretty definitively, you can’t. Rothbard made an attempt to do it, and you just can’t do it. The reason is because property rights are what’s called in rem. They’re good against the world. Contract rights are only between two people, so those are called in personam rights. You can’t use contract to create a right good against the world.
00:03:41
So let me state what my position is. I would define intellectual property as a type of right protected by modern legal systems in non-scarce, which means non-rivalrous, by the way. It doesn’t mean lack of abundance. It means non-rivalrous resources. There is no debate whatsoever among any economist in the world that ideas and patterns of information are not rivalrous. I mean this is well-known. This is why intellectual property laws are enacted. Now, they would include copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret and other types of rights.
00:04:18
Now, in my view, these rights are completely illegitimate because they contradict and undercut property rights that libertarians and anarcho-capitalists are in favor of. So that’s the problem with them. Now, you have some argument in your previous video with Shanklin that maybe it could be done by arbitration and then you confuse it with a contract right. So I think you have to have a coherent understanding of the nature and purpose of property rights. And you have to understand what contract is. Contract is not a binding promise or even a binding agreement. A contract is just the way that an owner of property assigns title to someone else or transfers it. That’s all. So if I give you a gift of a watch, that’s a contract. If we make a deal and we exchange a watch for money, that’s a contract. If we make a bet and I say I will give you the watch if…
00:05:06
JAMES COX: Ten seconds.
00:05:07
STEPHAN KINSELLA: If it rains tomorrow, that’s also a contract. It’s a transfer of property rights. I don’t even know what it means for third parties to interfere with contracts. Third parties interfere with property rights, not with contracts.
00:05:19
CHRIS LEROUX: Well, I mean I think there’s a lot of common ground there, but the essential…
00:05:23
JAMES COX: Hold on a second. I think now Stephan gets to ask you a question.
00:05:28
CHRIS LEROUX: Oh okay.
00:05:28
JAMES COX: And then you have two minutes once Stephan has asked you the question.
00:05:31
STEPHAN KINSELLA: Wouldn’t it make sense for him to go since I just went? I mean I’m okay with him taking his turn now.
00:05:37
JAMES COX: He went first on – well, okay, Chris can ask you a question I guess, and then you go.
00:05:42
STEPHAN KINSELLA: Chris, it’s up to you, whatever you prefer.
00:05:43
CHRIS LEROUX: Well, I mean I would just say that, listen, contract rights is all there is. There’s no necessity for any concept of scarcity or rivalrousness, and…
00:05:54
JAMES COX: So what’s your question?
00:05:55
CHRIS LEROUX: I don’t have a question. I don’t believe that…
00:05:59
JAMES COX: You want two minutes then.
00:06:00
CHRIS LEROUX: Mr. Kinsella has any answers.
00:06:02
JAMES COX: You want two minutes then to go.
00:06:04
STEPHAN KINSELLA: What am I going to answer if I don’t have a question?
00:06:06
JAMES COX: You want two minutes then, Chris, to speak again and then…
00:06:11
STEPHAN KINSELLA: Chris, why don’t you tell me what you disagree with me about?
00:06:14
JAMES COX: All right, two minutes. Go.
00:06:15
CHRIS LEROUX: Well, you know, anything that people trade voluntarily in an anarcho-capitalist system is, by definition, property. They couldn’t trade it if it isn’t property, and your opinions about what’s scarce or what’s rivalrous are irrelevant. Those two people made the contract. They’ve established – in an anarcho-capitalist system, they’ve established third-party arbitration in the contract. We can assume that because that’s – I think it’s a norm we all agree on, and we can sort of assume that most contracts are probably going to have that or all contracts are going to have that I think, or we can discuss that. And I don’t see anything else worthy of discussion. That’s it. That’s the solution. It’s either voluntary contracts or involuntary contracts. The only problem with the current system is, one, it’s funded by taxes, which is theft, extortion, and slavery.
00:07:09
And number two, it’s the enforcement of involuntary contracts, so if someone goes to download such-and-such file from such-and-such place, they have not agreed to a contract that restricts them from downloading that file. But if they do make a contract that says that they will not download that file or share that file or reproduce that file or whatever, then they need to be held to their word. They shouldn’t have made that agreement if they didn’t believe in it, and that’s it.
00:07:42
STEPHAN KINSELLA: I think…
00:07:44
CHRIS LEROUX: Wait. Don’t interrupt me because I mean isn’t this my time?
00:07:47
JAMES COX: Yeah, you’ve got 27 seconds.
