I think I'm preaching to the choir here but here are some thoughts I
sent to friends and family.
I just read an article (http://www.newsweek.com/id/210390/output/print)
that got me thinking about intellectual property rights and our economy. The
guy made some good points but I believe his thought about intellectual
property rights and our economy are not only wrong but dangerous to our
country even though most Americans would probably agree with him. He ended
his article by saying, "The devastation of the recession which may end early
next year will not be forgotten as long as anyone who suffered through it is
still alive. It is like the Great Depression that way. Some of these scars
will be permanent. The opportunity America has at this point in the fragile
recovery may not have existed before because of national arrogance and it
may not exist again if the economy remains in a shambles long enough. The
recession has given America a window, perhaps of only two or three years, to
refresh its economic fortunes in a way they have not been refreshed since
the core of the business strength of the US moved from the manufacturing to
the service sector. The prosperity that went with that evolution may indeed
have been a false promise. America may need both a powerful manufacturing
and services sector with some reasonable access to capital, a credit and
financial system that is reasonably transparent, protection of the
intellectual property of the nation's companies, and the realization that
not everyone who can work gets a job simply because they live in the US."
This pretty much summarizes his thought in the article. I've highlighted the
part that concerns me.
Here's my concern. I think this idea of protecting the intellectual
property rights of this country is pretty much on par with our national
obsession with entitlements. I think both of them are misguided and
dangerous. Yes, we want to protect people's welfare and yes, we want to
protect the creative property of people *where we can and where it makes
sense* but when these things are not well thought out all they are going to
do is bankrupt this country. The problem is basically this in my mind. We
can either put our creative efforts into creating better mouse traps or we
can put our efforts into protecting our "rights" to what we have already
created. It seems to me that we're on the wrong side of history somewhat
like Great Britain was on the wrong side of history as this country was
emerging as an economic power early in our history. Great Britain,
*the*industrial power of the world at that time tried something
similar. They
tried to protect their industrial machinery ideas from other countries. Did
it work? No, it didn't especially with regard to our young country. A lot of
our industrial production ideas were "stolen" from the British. Now the shoe
is on the other foot. Are we going to learn from our own history? It doesn't
look like it. The author also said, "Microsoft, the world's largest software
company, says that it has all but given up on doing profitable business in
China." What does this tell us about the business model of "protecting the
intellectual property of the nation's companies?" To me it's pretty obvious.
It's not going to work.
This whole thing dovetails with the ideas in a book I'm reading for the
second time. It's one of the best books I've ever read, "Personal Knowledge"
by Michael Polanyi. One of the premises of the book is that much of
practical knowledge cannot be transmitted by books or even by word of mouth
but only through the guided experience of the master teaching the student
through an apprenticeship, the silversmith teaching the apprentice, the
pianist teaching her pupil, the biologist or chemist teaching his graduate
student. This is where our country has lost its way. Instead of bringing up
a new generation to compete with the world, we've become soft. We're resting
on our laurels. In my opinion that's the best way to get left behind, to get
tossed into the dustbin of history.
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