Most of the serious research and
development, the hard part of it, is funded by the public. In fact most of
the economy comes out of public expenditures through the state system, which
is the source of most innovation and development. I mean computers, the
internet. Just go through the range, it's all coming out of the state
system primarily. There is research and development in the corporate
system, some, but it's mostly at the marketing end. And the same is true of
drugs.
This is absolutely false. I agree that discovery isn't easy, but you know what's even harder? The other 90% of the work needed to finish it and make it a reliable product. Chomsky trivializes the work of synthetic organic chemists, the engineers that set up and keep production lines going, researchers that test the drugs, and so on.
In software terms, this is like saying that all the hard work is done because someone banged out a prototype over the weekend. It's full of bugs and doesn't have the features people want yet.
If you believe that Chomsky's right, try running a startup while holding his idea. You'll fail, or you'll discover that it's not easy and reject his idea.
I think there is a [citation needed] there, but I also think he's willfully ignoring that productizing stuff is difficult.
Here's a great example of "public goods" that's near and dear to my heart: I love Linux, and there's no way in hell I'd use anything else. However, it's hard to argue that it sets the pace in terms of usability. Commercial operations produced easier systems for the end user well before Linux got there.
Why? Because they got paid for their results, and they got paid because of intellectual property. And as they got paid, they sunk part of that money back into research and development into improving the experience. There is a comparatively tiny amount of money going into the Linux Desktop.
If Chomsky wants to argue that government funded research is the source of innovation, then he should also ask, what is the source of government funds?
Government takes dollars from those who earn it, and spends it according to collective values at best, or in favor of corrupt interests at worst.
Who is to say that if those dollars were left in the hands of those who earned them, they wouldn't be spent more wisely?
He doesn't cite many examples/sources, but the PARC lab and spin-offs seem to be a huge exception: laser printer, mouse, windows, postscript, ethernet.
Granted, they're not fundamental science, but they were, at least, innovations.
Chomsky is talking about institutional factors. He typically admits he is affected by them the same as anyone else. What kind of readership can a public domain book get? How would publishing it be funded? If it was a success, another publisher could just begin a print run. Old public domain books manage to get published, but, they have the advantage that they don't need to be advertised, have shelf space speculatively bought, etc. etc.
Chomsky also doesn't believe we should have regular property (at least not in the "rights" sense), but he still owns stuff.
Putting work into the Public Domain is ironically not the best way to serve the public good. It's much safer to have a permissive license. Chomsky's answer here might have unintentionally passed the wrong idea in that sense.
There's always someone trying to make everyone out to be a hypocrite. It is not a conflict to both have a belief and not act within that belief. If the world suddenly started working the way he described and he still tried to sell things he expected others to give away then it would be hypocritical behavior.
Any published work is copyrighted by default. Are you aware of Chomsky making any effort to keep his books out of people's hands? Has he sued anyone for copying or distributing his books?
This is quite relevant all on its own, even if slightly off-topic:
[the WTO Uruguay agreement is] called a "free trade agreement". It's in fact a highly protectionist agreement. The US is strongly opposed to free trade, just as business leaders are, just as they're opposed to a market economy.
Here's a different perspective for you guys that is more or less in agreement with Chomsky's:
The universe does not recognize our artificial restrictions on information.
This is inherently why people generally think it's ok to violate the copyrights of others. Because we know, and the universe knows that nothing was taken away from them. The restrictions are entirely artifical and designed to do nothing except create an enormous inequality between the the "owner" of the information, and everyone else. That's the sole purpose. These Imaginary Stuff owners then use this disparity (a legal fiction entirely) to generate massive wealth based on entirely contrived circumstances.
Since the dawn of speech nothing like this has existed because it never made sense. Anything one person said could be repeated by anyone who could remembered it. So when did information suddenly become ownable? It's a nonsensical legal fiction of epic proportions.
I contend that if the information is publicly available, you no longer own it. This is how the universe operates. Fans of Imaginary Stuff rights will not be able to get their way for long. Or rather, they shouldn't be allowed to use the legal system to enforce their artificial disparity. If you want to own information, keep it a secret. Otherwise, it's everyone's.
Another way of looking at it is, if you want to get paid for good information/content/art production, you're going to have to do what every other human does, continue working even after producing great works. You should be valued for your talent, and ability to produce from it over and over - just like everyone else. A bricklayer doesn't lay one brick really well and then charge everyone to use it daily. The value should be placed on the ability, not the product, since there's no physical product at all really. The slight exception being physical works of art etc, but then they're not just information, so the rules I'm talking about do not entirely apply. Photographic reproductions are information, but an original work in physical form is still valuable for being the first and physical.
What do you other smart folks think about this? I know a lot of us work in information production in some form. I myself am a software engineer, so I'm not just trying to take from everyone else and pretend the rule doesn't apply to me because I'm not an information/content producer. I actually am. So this hits me hardest too.
To my knowledge, one of the reasons Universities were granted the right to patent their work was as a defensive measure - work patented at the University was intended to be available to the public, or at least, a whole lot easier to access than work patented by a private entity. The idea was to make the results of publicly funded research more, not less, accessible.
Nice read. I've never read any Chomsky. He mentions inventions related to industries (textiles, steel and pharmaceutical...) and sciences. I'd be curious to read more from him about IP applied to art. Any idea where to look at?
Comparative advantage is generally not understood. It does not mean that countries only manufacture those things that they are best at. From the piece:
>But those of us who would be here would be pursuing our comparative advantage and
exporting fish and fur. That's what economists tell you is right. Pursue your comparative advantage. That was our comparative advantage. We certainly wouldn't have had a textile industry. British textiles were way cheaper and better.
Comparative advantage allows for trade even when one country has an absolute advantage over another. Even if British textiles were better and cheaper than the American ones if America started to produce textiles it could make sense for the British to reduce their textile production if there are other goods they can apply the same resources to that have a higher value than they will pay for the American textiles they are now buying.
The wikipedia page is pretty good at explaining this:
That's true ONLY IF America started to produce textiles. But the textbook trade models (e.g. Ricardian, Hecksher-Olin, etc) all pretty much recommend that America should just stick to producing fish and fur to maximise its gains from trade, and forget about a homegrown textile industry.
We certainly wouldn't have had a textile industry. British textiles were way cheaper and better. Actually British textiles were cheaper and better because Britain had crushed Irish and Indian superior textile manufacturers and stolen their techniques. So they were now the preeminent textile manufacturer, by force of course.
I have no idea what he's talking about here. The British did do a number of horrible things in India and did use force to crush, for example, the Indian shipbuilding industry. They also could have learned a lot from Indian metallurgy if they were a bit less arrogant. But textiles? I guess they did "steal" cotton, but that wasn't really an invention in the sense he's talking about.
Chomsky is just one man, and thus subject to the same intellectual failings as other individuals, but his integrity is well beyond the vast majority of people with a pulpit. You should definitely read and consider what he has to say, because otherwise you may be hearing only lobbyists' perspectives.
[+] [-] Tycho|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxharris|15 years ago|reply
This is absolutely false. I agree that discovery isn't easy, but you know what's even harder? The other 90% of the work needed to finish it and make it a reliable product. Chomsky trivializes the work of synthetic organic chemists, the engineers that set up and keep production lines going, researchers that test the drugs, and so on.
In software terms, this is like saying that all the hard work is done because someone banged out a prototype over the weekend. It's full of bugs and doesn't have the features people want yet.
If you believe that Chomsky's right, try running a startup while holding his idea. You'll fail, or you'll discover that it's not easy and reject his idea.
[+] [-] davidw|15 years ago|reply
Here's a great example of "public goods" that's near and dear to my heart: I love Linux, and there's no way in hell I'd use anything else. However, it's hard to argue that it sets the pace in terms of usability. Commercial operations produced easier systems for the end user well before Linux got there.
Why? Because they got paid for their results, and they got paid because of intellectual property. And as they got paid, they sunk part of that money back into research and development into improving the experience. There is a comparatively tiny amount of money going into the Linux Desktop.
[+] [-] bostonscott|15 years ago|reply
If Chomsky wants to argue that government funded research is the source of innovation, then he should also ask, what is the source of government funds?
Government takes dollars from those who earn it, and spends it according to collective values at best, or in favor of corrupt interests at worst.
Who is to say that if those dollars were left in the hands of those who earned them, they wouldn't be spent more wisely?
[+] [-] 6ren|15 years ago|reply
Granted, they're not fundamental science, but they were, at least, innovations.
[+] [-] edw519|15 years ago|reply
They don't make any economic sense or any other sense.
Then this:
They should be working for the public good. (Applause) And that means it should be available to the public. So...
So...why aren't any of these (his 145 books):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbo...
in the public domain?
[+] [-] anon1385|15 years ago|reply
or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/year/year-overview....
or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/sld/sld-contents.ht...
or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-contents.ht...
or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/ni/ni-contents.html
or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/dd/dd-overview.html
or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rc/rc-contents.html
[+] [-] cma|15 years ago|reply
Chomsky also doesn't believe we should have regular property (at least not in the "rights" sense), but he still owns stuff.
[+] [-] stephth|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danssig|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angus77|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] njharman|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaffiene|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iwwr|15 years ago|reply
[the WTO Uruguay agreement is] called a "free trade agreement". It's in fact a highly protectionist agreement. The US is strongly opposed to free trade, just as business leaders are, just as they're opposed to a market economy.
[+] [-] pathjumper|15 years ago|reply
The universe does not recognize our artificial restrictions on information.
This is inherently why people generally think it's ok to violate the copyrights of others. Because we know, and the universe knows that nothing was taken away from them. The restrictions are entirely artifical and designed to do nothing except create an enormous inequality between the the "owner" of the information, and everyone else. That's the sole purpose. These Imaginary Stuff owners then use this disparity (a legal fiction entirely) to generate massive wealth based on entirely contrived circumstances.
Since the dawn of speech nothing like this has existed because it never made sense. Anything one person said could be repeated by anyone who could remembered it. So when did information suddenly become ownable? It's a nonsensical legal fiction of epic proportions.
I contend that if the information is publicly available, you no longer own it. This is how the universe operates. Fans of Imaginary Stuff rights will not be able to get their way for long. Or rather, they shouldn't be allowed to use the legal system to enforce their artificial disparity. If you want to own information, keep it a secret. Otherwise, it's everyone's.
Another way of looking at it is, if you want to get paid for good information/content/art production, you're going to have to do what every other human does, continue working even after producing great works. You should be valued for your talent, and ability to produce from it over and over - just like everyone else. A bricklayer doesn't lay one brick really well and then charge everyone to use it daily. The value should be placed on the ability, not the product, since there's no physical product at all really. The slight exception being physical works of art etc, but then they're not just information, so the rules I'm talking about do not entirely apply. Photographic reproductions are information, but an original work in physical form is still valuable for being the first and physical.
What do you other smart folks think about this? I know a lot of us work in information production in some form. I myself am a software engineer, so I'm not just trying to take from everyone else and pretend the rule doesn't apply to me because I'm not an information/content producer. I actually am. So this hits me hardest too.
[+] [-] danielsoneg|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephth|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rick888|15 years ago|reply
I'm fine with scientific facts not being patented, but something like Photoshop or Microsoft windows isn't scientific fact.
[+] [-] tjr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eyeforgotmyname|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pedrocr|15 years ago|reply
>But those of us who would be here would be pursuing our comparative advantage and exporting fish and fur. That's what economists tell you is right. Pursue your comparative advantage. That was our comparative advantage. We certainly wouldn't have had a textile industry. British textiles were way cheaper and better.
Comparative advantage allows for trade even when one country has an absolute advantage over another. Even if British textiles were better and cheaper than the American ones if America started to produce textiles it could make sense for the British to reduce their textile production if there are other goods they can apply the same resources to that have a higher value than they will pay for the American textiles they are now buying.
The wikipedia page is pretty good at explaining this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
[+] [-] vitaminj|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tycho|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sentinel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monochromatic|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] weego|15 years ago|reply
I've yet to come across a reason to doubt his credibility, but I'd be interested in reading a counter point to his arguments if you have some sources.
[+] [-] dasil003|15 years ago|reply