September 17, 2017
We all know how hard it is for people with advanced degrees to compete in the global economy, but how much government help do we have to give them? Apparently, whatever we give them in strong patent and copyright protections (yes folks, this is protectionism, no matter how much you like it) is not enough.
In an editorial on relations with China, the NYT offers this encouraging (to the rich) pronouncement:
“On intellectual property, now that China is putting energy into developing its own technology instead of just stealing America’s, the two could work together on stronger protections.”
Isn’t that great? We can redistribute more money to people who benefit from patent and copyright monopolies and then say it’s just unfortunate that technology leads to an upward redistribution of income. And most of our intellectual class are sufficiently s**t-for-brains to treat that as a serious argument.
And yes folks, there are alternatives to patent and copyright monopolies for financing research and creative work. But, as we all know, intellectuals have a hard time dealing with new ideas.
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