I mostly agree with troll Steven. Stefaan A Eeckels wrote: > > On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 08:59:12 +0000 > Rui Miguel Silva Seabra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Ter, 2006-12-05 às 18:49 -0600, John Hasler escreveu: > > > Rui Miguel Silva wrote: > > > > When you buy a piece of land, does it say your contract that it > > > > becomes public property after 20 years (as in patents)? > > > > > > I can buy a lease on a piece of land that expires after 20 years. > > > Nonetheless, the law recognizes that lease as property. > > > > The lease, not the land. > > Of course, that would then only prove that intangibles, like the lease, > can be owned, and hence are property. > > I believe that the crux of the matter is that more and more of our > economic activity has become intangible. We've become very efficient > at producing food - barely a few percent of the population in Europe > and the USA. Even if you take the services to the farming community > into consideration (producing tractors and other farming implements, > veterinary services etc.) the fact remains that we have to find gainful > employment for 90% of the population. Add to that the increase in > productivity of all manufacturing processes, and it's not difficult to > see that we need a lot of new things to keep people gainfully employed. > > Some of these things are material objects, such as cell 'phones, but > even more of them are services. Almost all of them are in the category > "nice to have" - people can survive quite well without texting, or > emailing, or GPS devices. > > The challenge for a society is to maintain a social structure that > motivates people. Once you've put the food production of millions of > people in the hands of a few tens of thousand, you need to make sure > that they find value and motivation in what society offers them. > Whether that is culture or cars, fancy clothes or holidays on tropical > isles - society has to motivate enough people to produce what it needs > to survive, or face extinction. > > This means that somehow intangible "values" (such as sitting in > meetings or playing a gig) have to be valued as much as a loaf of bread, > or a steak. That way, we can all happily work at things we're good at, > whilst acquiring tokens (money) that allow us buy food, clothes, > lodging and all the objects and services that motivate us. > > Software, recorded music, books, movies etc. all can be reproduced > cheaply and easily, but are expensive to produce (have you ever > considered how many people are involved in making a movie?). If you > make it impossible for people to recoup the costs of producing the > movie, because it's easy and cheap to copy a DVD, and the DVD is still > there after you've copied it, how are you going to motivate people to > pony up the money to pay wages to a film crew, set creators, costume > designers, caterers etc? > > This is why intangibles have to be property of sorts - because > ultimately you will have to exchange them for food or clothes. The > alternative is that only land will have real value. Welcome to the > middle ages. > > Of course the system is no longer well adapted to the current > technological and social circumstances. Patents, for example, are still > quite effective when the players are of equal size. The knowledge they > contain becomes "public" and cross-license deals are signed. What they > do not allow is smaller players to challenge the big ones. But don't > forget that there were no really "large" (by today's standards) > companies when the patent system was designed. So to a degree it still > works as designed, and it's hard to fault a system for not catering > for situations and technologies its designers could not even dream of. > > So let's work at designing a better system - better adapted to our > needs and technologies. But make sure that system supports the large > majority of people who create nothing but intangibles, or you'd better > buy yourself a nice, large, fertile plot, and lots of weapons to defend > your property, because those of us who are left will be back to farming > and fighting. > > Take care,
regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
