libertarianism
About us
An open, user owned community for the general disscussion of the libertarian philosophy.
- Libertarianism is the belief that each person has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.
- Libertarians defend each person’s right to life, liberty, and property.
- In the libertarian view, voluntary agreement is the gold standard of human relationships.
- If there is no good reason to forbid something (a good reason being that it violates the rights of others), it should be allowed.
- Force should be reserved for prohibiting or punishing those who themselves use force.
Most people live their own lives by that code of ethics. Libertarians believe that that code should be applied consistently, even to the actions of governments, which should be restricted to protecting people from violations of their rights. Governments should not use their powers to censor speech, conscript the young, prohibit voluntary exchanges, steal or “redistribute” property, or interfere in the lives of individuals who are otherwise minding their own business.
Source: https://www.libertarianism.org/essays/what-is-libertarianism
Rules
1. Stay on topic
We are a libertarian community. There are no restrictions regarding different stances on the political spectrum, but all posts should be related to the philosophy of libertarianism.
2. Be polite to others and respects each others opinions.
Be polite to others and respects each others opinions. We don't want any form of gatekeeping or circlejerk culture here.
3. Stay constructive and informational
In general, all types of contributions are allowed, but the relevance to this community must always be evident and presented openly by the contributor. Posts that do not meet these requirements will be removed after a public warning. Also remember to cite you sources!
4. Use self-moderation measures first before reporting.
This community is fundamentally built upon freedom of speech. Since everyone understands libertarianism differently and we do not want to exclude any kind of content a priori, we appeal to the individual users to block/mute posts or users who do not meet their requirements. Please bear this in mind when filing a report
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There will always be people who do not expect to be compensated financially for the work for they put into their inventions. And there will always be people who do expect to be compensated financially.
The latter often includes people who make tools that they don't actually use. Unlike the open source community, they only make tools in order to sell them to others.
With a patent system, society will benefit from the efforts of both types of people. Without one, they will benefit only from the former.
Thus, patents maximize the rate of technological progress.
The only point is whether you can make a claim to it at all. Is it even possible to claim that every labour has a right to be paid? Or should the wage be related to the product of the work, which can then be rewarded accordingly? Or to put it in an example: Should we reward office workers according to their work or according to their performance? The answer of the social state is that we should reward the work, i.e. the effort, so that no one is disadvantaged on the basis of his or her ability or possibilities. As a libertarian, I tend towards the second: Equal end product - equal pay.
Some people, like open source developers, are willing to work for free. Most people are not.
Apple is coming out with a new iPhone this year. The vast majority of people who worked to produce the new iPhone would not have done so for free. Same is true of every other Apple product, all big studio movies, and nearly all AAA console games, CPUs, and GPUs. All of those things require significant capital investment (unlike most open source software), but none of those things would be profitable without IP protection. So none of them would exist without IP protection.
That doesn't mean a world without IP would completely lack new products. But it would lack easily copied products that require significant capital investment. So you would play only fan-made indie games and you would watch only self-funded low budget experimental films. You certainly would not get new versions of various consumer electronics to choose from every single year.
For the vast majority of consumers, the benefits of IP protection are worth it.