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The Rent Hypothesis

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Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#141

Post by artur_makly »

im posting this comment for my friend :

It's funny how high the inverse correlation is with CEO pay and start-up success. I think Shumpeterian forces may invert in the near future and leave these examples like Oracle/Larry Ellison relatively dated.

When automation dominates economic growth, you'll be in this situation where basic income is the only way most people can get by - how to facilitate that? 90% taxes on high capital gains incomes like in the mid-20th century? That's more of the communism angle, where fixed property becomes de-facto state owned. Pikkety doesn't get it, there was a good interview with Andreesen to that effect.

What about stuff like bitcoin and decentralized apps that are open source, thus not protected by rent-levy's in IP law, yet gain huge economic power directly through usage? Could basic income be tied into that? Perhaps indeed it could, a more decentralized alternative to the commie scenario (which probably isn't politically feasible in the US anyway, hopefully...)

- Patrick Dugan @patrick_dugan

Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#142

Post by spinlock »

PepeGomez wrote: post #121
spinlock wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The philosophy behind patents is that they encourage the sharing of research so that the total cost of rnd to society is minimized. Whithout ip protection, firms would rely on trade secrets. They would still charge more for their products but a competitor would have to spend the money on research to compete. I don't know if you would still call the premium they could charge rent or if you would amortize rnd over the…

That can't possibly work though. Patents only give an incentive to patent things that can be expected to be independently discovered or reverse engineered sooner than the patent expires. There is no reason to patent things that could be kept as trade secrets for longer.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it worked, only that this was the idea behind the system. The practice of our patent system is pretty far off from this ideal.

Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#143

Post by spinlock »

collyw wrote: post #69
spinlock wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The philosophy behind patents is that they encourage the sharing of research so that the total cost of rnd to society is minimized. Whithout ip protection, firms would rely on trade secrets. They would still charge more for their products but a competitor would have to spend the money on research to compete. I don't know if you would still call the premium they could charge rent or if you would amortize rnd over the…

Linux and the open source movement pretty much disproves that theory. Better (or "at least as good") quality kernels than the two biggest software companies and biggest defenders of intellectual property rights on the planet could manage. We should really look at the evidence rather than repeating the mantra.

First, I was trying to relate the ideas behind the patent system not to describe how it works in practice. So, while I always like to talk about how gnu and Linux took over the world, it's not relavent to the discussion of rents vis a vie patents.

Second, Unix is a bad example because AT&T never tried to patent it. I'll ask my dad about it. He worked at bell labs during this time (he has about 2 dozen patents and an IEEE medal). I think the attitude around there was that software wasn't something you could patent. My dads research was in lasers so I heard much more about lightwave devices than software growing up.

Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#144

Post by collyw »

Yen wrote: post #89
collyw wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux and the open source movement pretty much disproves that theory. Better (or "at least as good") quality kernels than the two biggest software companies and biggest defenders of intellectual property rights on the planet could manage. We should really look at the evidence rather than repeating the mantra.

I don't know if Linux/Open Source/Free Software disproves the theory, or actually proves it. The argument would be: Microsoft and Apple feel that existing IP protections on software would not sufficiently prevent competitors or consumers from 'stealing' the results of their work. So, they don't release the source code. Because they don't release the source code, there's a duplication of effort between Microsoft, Appl…

Apple didn't manage to build a decent kernel themselves so took a "free" one. Nothing to do with stealing their work. You are aware that Apple uses an open source kernel?

Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#145

Post by nwah1 »

scotty79 wrote: post #120
nwah1 wrote: post #44

See also: The Law of Rent Land, and natural opportunities in general, are the original and most fundamental source of rent. Even the electromagnetic spectrum is monopolized. And although the holders of these exclusive rights do pay the FCC, they pay very little compared to the actual value. Likewise, people pay very little in taxes compared to the true value of their land. Imagine if instead of having to pay income t…

My gripes with land tax and property tax is that they are linear. They should be highly progressive. It should be so high that it would be more economical for you, if you own 10 apartments to sell one or few than to pay tax on all 10. To avoid loopholes ... if you own entity that owns some land or property, you need to pay the tax as if that property was your own (minus the tax already paid by this entity). Also arab…

Taxing land by value encourages efficient farming. It will make farmers want to economize on land, just like a carbon tax would make people want to have fewer emissions.

Also, the gini coefficient for landownership, by value, is actually higher than income virtually everywhere. Thus, a land value tax is actually more progressive than an income tax.

Taxing by market value also raises the most revenue, for the same reason why a rational landlord only wants to charge market rent. Charging either more or less is just leaving money on the table.

And if it is less, the difference will be pocketed by landlords. Because they know what the market value is.

Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#146

Post by dredmorbius »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #127
PepeGomez wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The way I reconcile it is usually, "Monopolies are okay when the the good in question only exists because of the monopolist." Can you give an example of such a thing?

Did you read the second line of the comment?

Please assume good faith.

Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#147

Post by Dylan16807 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #146
Dylan16807 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the second line of the comment?

Please assume good faith.

I did assume good faith for that comment. I've skimmed posts or forgotten lines plenty of times. So I simply pointed them back at the answer to their question.

...the one after that seems to disprove good faith, though. No argument against the examples, just total lack of recognition that they exist. There are explanations for that to be an accident, but they are not likely. Still, I took more time to explain very carefully and earnestly, and got no reply in return.

Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#148

Post by PepeGomez »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #139
PepeGomez wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I did? You didn't give any examples, except that salt isn't such a thing.

Salt is the fourth line. It comes after the examples you asked for. Are you screwing with me? SilasX listed that they have a monopoly on SilasX's labor. That's a pretty sensible monopoly. They also listed "Creator's monopoly on patterns that only exist because that creator found them" as something they are okay with.

That's not an example, that's a vague category and I'm asking for examples of such things.

Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#149

Post by SilasX »

PepeGomez wrote: post #148
Dylan16807 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salt is the fourth line. It comes after the examples you asked for. Are you screwing with me? SilasX listed that they have a monopoly on SilasX's labor. That's a pretty sensible monopoly. They also listed "Creator's monopoly on patterns that only exist because that creator found them" as something they are okay with.

That's not an example, that's a vague category and I'm asking for examples of such things.

The first one easily generates examples: for all people X, X's monopoly on the labor of X. My monopoly on my labor. PepeGomez's monopoly on PepeGomez's labor.

The second one would be artistic works like books, drawings, movies, etc. Would also include inventions. In that case, it's a lot more likely that someone later on would come up with the same invention, which is why limits on monopoly length are reasonable; as time goes by, it becomes less true that "If not for this monopolist, we would not know of this pattern."

Re: The Rent Hypothesis

#150

Post by PepeGomez »

SilasX wrote: post #149
PepeGomez wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an example, that's a vague category and I'm asking for examples of such things.

The first one easily generates examples: for all people X, X's monopoly on the labor of X. My monopoly on my labor. PepeGomez's monopoly on PepeGomez's labor. The second one would be artistic works like books, drawings, movies, etc. Would also include inventions. In that case, it's a lot more likely that someone later on would come up with the same invention, which is why limits on monopoly length are reasonable; as…

But what do you mean by "your labor"? How could you not have a monopoly on your labor?

>Would also include inventions.

Inventions don't exist because of a single person. In most cases there is only one or a few workable solutions. Most patentable things are invented multiple times.

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