Introduction to Economic Government

By Robert Klassen

Economic Government is a set of private institutions that offer protection of property. Property consists of an individual’s life, innovations, and tangible goods. Such institutions would include banking, insurance, multiple tenant income property (see Spencer MacCallum’s The Art of Community), private legal arbitration, innovation registry, and innovation clearinghouse.

Although I coined the expression “economic government” in 1995 in order to sharply distinguish this form of government from political government, with which we are all too familiar, I learned most of these ideas from Andrew J. Galambos during the years 1972 through 1978. Galambos extrapolated from the seminal observation that ideas are property, which I believed at the time and for the next quarter-century to be his own innovation. I was wrong. In January of this year (2003) my son sent me an article that he found on the Internet. I would like to extend my gratitude to the people at www.lysanderspooner.org for making this rare document available to the world.

A LETTER

SCIENTISTS

AND

INVENTORS

THE SCIENCE OF JUSTICE, AND THEIR RIGHT OF

PERPETUAL PROPERTY IN THEIR DISCOVORIES AND INVENTIONS.

BY LYSANDER SPOONER

BOSTON:
CUPPLES, UPHAM & CO

283 WASHINGTON STREET

1884.

LETTER.

SECTION I.

To Scientists and Inventors:

You are the great producers and diffusers of knowledge and wealth. Your scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions are the great, almost the only. instrumentalities by which the world at large is enlightened or enriched. You, Scientists, explore Nature for her facts and laws, which, violated through ignorance or design, bring upon mankind want, disease, misery, and death; but which, known and accepted as guides, bring to them not only great material wealth, but also life, health, and strength of both body and mind. And you, Inventors, devise and explain to us the application of mechanical forces, by which men’s powers of providing for, and satisfying, their wants and desires, are multiplied a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand fold.

Your discoveries and inventions, the value of which no man can measure, are not, like our material wealth, consumed, or worn out, by use, nor do they decay by lime. They are not, like our material wealth, local and limited in their nature; but each and all of them can be diffused all over the globe, and be utilized by all peoples, not only without conflict, but with mutual and universal benefit.

For the want of your discoveries and inventions, mankind, through many thousands of years, have remained savage, barbarous, or, if in any degree civilized, still poverty-stricken, shortlived, feeble, ignorant, superstitious, enslaved in both body and mind. And such is the condition of more than a thousand millions of the world’s people to-day. And such it will remain for [*4] thousands of years to come, unless they can have the benefit of such discoveries and inventions as you are making, and offering to them; and such as they would accept and utilize, if their governments did not deprive them of all power to do so.

In spite of all the obstacles which these governments have constantly placed in their way, these discoveries and inventions have, of late years, and in some portions of the world, made progress. And nobody knows so well as yourselves, how much greater this progress would be, if all men of scientific and inventive minds, all over the world, had all the inducements and means that they might have, and ought to have, for prosecuting their investigations and experiments.

Your own rights and interests, and the rights and interests of mankind at large, are identical in this matter. It is your own right, and for your own interest, that you should have all the inducements and means that you honestly can have, for prosecuting your investigations and experiments, and producing all the discoveries and inventions that you are capable of. It is also the right, and for the interests, of mankind at large, that you should have all those inducements and means, because it is only through the greatest number of discoveries and inventions, that mankind are to be most highly enlightened and enriched.

What, then, are these inducements and means, which you need, and have a right to, and which it is the right, and for the interests, of mankind at large, that you should have? They are these:

I. The same right of perpetual property in the products of your brains, that all other men are justly entitled to have in the products of their hands.

2. The same protection, by both civil and criminal law, for the products of your brain labor, that other men are justly entitled to have for the products of their hand labor.

3. The same right of perpetual property in your discoveries and inventions, in all the other countries of the world, as in your own.

4. It is the right, and for the interests, of all past discoverers and inventors, and of their heirs, to recover their natural right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions, which has [*5] hitherto been denied or withheld by the ignorant and tyrannical governments that have heretofore existed, and now exist, in the world.

5. It is also the right, and for the interests, of mankind at large, that the right of perpetual property, in their discoveries and inventions, should be restored to all past discoverers and inventors, and to their hurt, so far as they can now be ascertained.

6. It is your right to have all the money you need, and honestly can have- that is, all the money that freedom in banking would give you - not only for making your discoveries and inventions, but also for carrying them all over the world, and putting them into actual operation.

7. It is your right, and for your interests, as well as their own, that all mankind, all over the world, should have all the money they need, and honestly can have-that is, all the money that freedom in banking would give them - to enable them to utilize your discoveries and inventions as fast as they are made, and to distribute to consumers all the wealth that your discoveries and inventions will enable them to create.

How are all these propositions to be realized? In other words, how are they all to be established as law, in all the different countries of tile world ?

The general answer to this question is, that these propositions are all to be established as law, all over the world, by showing their truth and justice to all peoples; and also by showing, not Only their adaptation, but their necessity, for promoting the highest enlightenment, and the greatest enrichment, of all the peoples of the earth.

But a more particular answer is needed. And it will now be given, by showing not only the truth and justice of the several propositions themselves, and their adaptation and necessity to produce all that is now claimed for them, but also by showing that at Scientists and inventors have it in their own power, while promoting their own highest interests, to accomplish the whole work. [*6]

SECTION II.

Before proceeding to the consideration of the preceding propositions, it is your right, and for your interests, to have this one question decided, viz.: Whether your scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, by which, incomparably beyond all other men, you are enlightening and enriching mankind, are, in their nature, an equally legitimate property, and entitled to the same legal protection, as are the products of men’s manual labor? Or whether that mere pittance of protection, which is allowed to them in a few countries, and not at all in others, is all the reward to which your labors are entitled?

When this question shall be rightly answered, all the other questions must necessarily be rightly answered, too. And this question is really and finally answered by the single fact that knowledge is property.

That knowledge is wealth - and wealth, too, of the greatest. value - no man of sense will deny. Why, then, is it not property? And subject to all the laws of property?

Knowledge is property. It is a property that is really acquired only by labor of mind, or body, or both; oftentimes only by great labor of both body and mind. It is also a property that is extensively bought and sold, like other property, in the market.

It is true that a vast amount of knowledge - knowledge, too, of great intrinsic value - is so common, from having been acquired by each one’s own experience and observation, that it bears no price in the market; but that does not affect the principle, that all knowledge, that will bring a price in free and open market, is as legitimate a subject of bargain and sale as is any material commodity whatever.

Even so common and simple a knowledge as that of the alphabet has its market value, and is rightfully bought and sold. The young girl, who knows the alphabet, is rightfully paid for imparting that knowledge to those younger, or less enlightened than herself.

On the other hand, the highest kinds of knowkdge - or. at least, what passes for such in this ignorant world - s constantly and openly bought and sold, oftentimes at enormous prices. [*7]

Thus legislators, judges, lawyers, editors, teachers of all kinds, physicians, priests, and soldiers, are continually selling their knowledge - and, perhaps, quite as frequently their ignorance and falsehoods - for money.

Legislators are continually selling such knowledge - or, rather, Sun) ignorance and falsehoods as these, viz.: That they themselves are rightfully invested with absolute and irresponsible dominion over the property, liberty, and lives of their fellow men; that their discretion, in the exercise of this power, can rightfully be restrained by no natural principles of justice; that their commands are authoritative and final, and the only imperative rule of action for all whom they call their subjects; that resistance to their laws, as they call them, is the greatest of crimes, and may rightfully, and must necessarily, be punished with confiscation, imprisonment, and death. In all ages, the mass of mankind have been compelled to pay, with their property, liberty, and, in vast numbers of cases with their lives, for such knowledge - or, rather, for such monstrosities absurdities, and falsehoods - as these.

Under the name of knowledge, judges, lawyers, and editors are Constantly affirming, repeating, and reiterating these monstrosities, absurdities, and falsehoods of the legislators; and are taking their pay for so doing, as if they were really selling the most valuable commodities.

Surely it does not lie in the mouths of these legislators, judges, lawyers and editors, who live and flourish by selling such falsehoods as these, to say that the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, which are every day demonstrating their power to enlighten, enrich, and liberate all mankind, are not legitimate property, that may rightfully be bought and sold.

The knowledge of the soldier - such as it is - is in great demand. To him who knows how to kill the greatest number of men, in the shortest time, and for the most frivolous or unjust causes, his knowledge is his fortune. Legislators are so Constantly dependent upon it for their very existence as legislators, that they pay enormous sums for it - but always out of other people’s money. [*8]

Physicians, in all ages, have been freely selling their knowledge - or, more commonly, their ignorance and falsehoods; and the purchasers have been paying for them with their property, their health, and their lives.

Does it lie in the mouths of these physicians to deny that scientific truths and mechanical inventions are legitimate subjects of property?

Priests have for ages been selling, under the name of knowledge, absurd dogmas and creeds, which they described as sure to carry the believer in them to a future world of eternal and indescribable happiness, and as equally sure to carry all unbelievers in them to a future world of eternal and indescribable woe. And they, in conspiracy with legislators who needed their aid, have compelled the mass of mankind to pay for this so called knowledge, under the alternatives of imprisonment, torture, and death. But they have never demonstrated the truth of their dogmas. No one of their number has ever gone to the future world, and brought back the information that their so-called knowledge was anything other than ignorance and falsehood.

Does it lie in the mouths of these priests to say that scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, whose truth and utility are being constantly demonstrated before all the world, are not legitimate subjects of property? or, consequently, of free bargain and sale?

Will the people themselves, whose ancestors, for thousands of years, have been swindled out of their common sense, their property, health, liberty, and lives, by these venders of ignorance and falsehood, under the name of knowledge-and who are now being swindled in the same way themselves - will they deny that such veritable realities as scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions - discoveries and inventions that have demonstrated their power to fill the earth with knowledge, and health, and wealth, and liberty - are legitimate subjects of property, that may freely and rightfully be bought and sold? Will they choose to pay - as they and their ancestors hitherto have done -with their property, health, liberty, and lives, for such ignorance, falsehood, oppression, robbery, and ruin, as have hitherto been dealt out to them, rather [*9] than for such health, wealth, truth, justice, and liberty as scientists and inventors offer them?

And, finally, will not scientists and inventors themselves, while establishing their own rights to their own property, give themselves to the work of establishing justice, as a science, in place of the absurdities, the falsehoods, the chicanery, the usurpations, and the arbitrary, irresponsible power of the ambitious, rapacious, and unprincipled men, by whom the world is now ruled, and who make mankind their dupes and their prey?

If they will but do this, the work will soon be accomplished.

SECTION III.

Assuming it now to be settled that your discoveries and inventions are, in their nature, a legitimate property, the first of the Propositions before mentioned to be established is this, viz.: That, in truth and justice, scientists and inventors have the same right of perpetual property in the products of their brain labor, that other men have in the products of their hand labor.

This proposition is established by the simple facts that knowledge is property, and is, in its nature, durable, vendible, and transferable; for all property, in things durable, vendible, and transferable, is, in its very nature, perpetual, and a legitimate subject of devise and inheritance. And no formal will or testament is necessary to convey a man’s property, at his decease, to his so-called natural heirs - such as his wife and children - or, in the absence of such, to his nearest blood relations. The facts that, during his life, his moral duty and natural affection prompt him to acquire wealth, and expend it for the support and happiness of these so-called natural heirs, rather than for others whom he does not know, or, knowing, does not love, furnishes a sufficient proof, or at least a sufficient presumption, that, at his death, he desires them to possess the property he leaves behind him; and nothing but the clearest proof to the contrary is allowed to defeat that presumption. And for a government to confiscate, after his death, [*10] this property, which be had produced or accumulated for their support or benefit, would be as gross and cruel an act of tyranny and robbery, as it would be to confiscate it during his lifetime. And the common sentiments of mankind have concurred in this opinion. And this principle is plainly as applicable to intellectual, as to material, property. And the fact that this principle has heretofore been wholly, or partially, disregarded in its application to intellectual property, is only a proof of the ignorance, or villainy, of the governments that have ruled the world.

But let us look further into this right of perpetual property.

When a man digs into the earth, and finds, and takes possession of, a diamond, he thereby acquires a supreme right of property in it, against all the world; and this right of property becomes perpetual in his heirs and assigns.

So, also, when a man dives into the sea, and brings up a pearl, he thereby acquires a supreme right of property in it, against all the world; and this right of property becomes perpetual in his heirs and assigns.

This right of perpetual property is the reward that nature offers to those who take upon themselves the labor of discovering her secret wealth, and making it available for man’s use.

By the same rule, when the scientist, in his laboratory, discovers that, in nature, there exists a substance, or a law, that was before unknown, but that may be useful to mankind, he thereby acquires a supreme right of property in that knowledge, against all the world; and he may either use it himself, or sell it, or lend it to others for use, the same as he might rightfully do with any material property. This is the reward that nature offers him for his labor.

And this right of property Is as much a perpetual one, as is the right of property in the case of the diamond, or the pearl.

And to deprive him of this right of property after a given number of years, is as much an act of pure usurpation and robbery, as it would be to take from the diamond digger and the pearl diver, the products of their labor, after a given number of years.

So, too, the inventor, who acquires a knowledge of mechanical forces, and then applies and combines them in a manner before [*11] unknown, and so as to produce a machine that will perform the labor of a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand men, thereby acquires a supreme right of property in his invention, and may rightfully hold it against all the world. He may either use it himself, or sell it, or lend it to others for use, at his pleasure. This right of property is, in its nature, a perpetual one in himself, his heirs, and assigns; and to deprive him of it, after a given number of years, is as much an act of usurpation and robbery, as it would be to rob the diamond digger, or the pearl diver, of his property, after a given number of years.

It is for the highest Interests of all mankind, that this right of perpetual property, in the scientist and inventor, should be acknowledged and maintained.

It is for the highest interests of all mankind, that each and every man should have a right of perpetual property in the products of his own labor; because it is this right alone that can stimulate every man to the highest exercise of his wealth-producing faculties of both body and mind. And the more a man produces for himself, the more he produces for all other men; for in that division of labor which science and invention give rise to, each man usually consumes but a very small portion of the particular wealth he produces. The surplus he gives to other men in exchange for the various kinds of wealth they produce respectively. The more, therefore, each one produces, the more all finally receive for their own consumption.

How many diamonds would ever have been digged from the earth, or how many pearls would ever have been taken from the sea, if they had all been confiscated in a few years after they had been obtained? How much gold, or silver, or copper, or iron, or any other metal, would ever have been taken out of the earth, for the benefit of mankind, if they had all been confiscated in a few years after they had been mined? How many farms would have ever been reclaimed from the forest, and brought under cultivation, and made to produce food for man, if they had all been confiscated in a few years after they had been made productive? How many comfortable dwellings would ever have been built, if they had all been confiscated soon after they had been made fit for habitation? [*12]

How many factories would ever have been built, and filled with machinery, for the production of a thousand, or ten thousand, different kinds of wealth, if they had all been confiscated soon after they were fitted for the, uses for which they were designed.

The same arguments, both of justice and expediency, which are applicable in favor of the right of perpetual property in material things, are applicable in favor of the same right of perpetual property in all the scientific discoveries ‘and mechanical inventions that the human mind is capable of producing. And it. is because no such - nor indeed any other special - right of property has, until recently, been acknowledged, that the world has heretofore been, and, for’ the most part, still is, so nearly destitute of all the sciences and inventions by which it would otherwise have been enlightened and enriched.

Even in those small portions of the earth in which some encouragement has, of late years, been given to science and invention, we doubtless have very little, almost no, conception of what would be the increased number of discoveries and inventions, if the right of perpetual property in them were acknowledged and protected, in the same manner as is the right of property in material things.

SECTION IV.

The second proposition to be established is this, viz.: That scientists and inventors are justly entitled to have the same protection, by both civil and criminal law, for the products of their brain labor, that other men are justly entitled to have for the products of their hand labor.

The truth and justice of this proposition are too nearly self-evident to need much argument in their support.

If a man’s scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions are as truly his property as are his houses or lands, then it is plain that any trespass upon them is as clearly a crime as is a trespass upon his houses or lands. And there is the same practical necessity [*13] for punishing criminally trespasses against a man’s intellectual property, as there is for punishing criminally trespasses against his material property.

What security could any man have for the quiet possession of his house or his farm, if every other man, who coveted them, but had no color of right the owner to carry on an expensive and protracted civil suit against each one of these the owner to carry on an expensive and protracted civil suit against each one of these trespassers? It is plain that it would cost him more to defend his house and farm than they were worth; and that his right of property in them would be practically destroyed. This argument is just as strong in favor of punishing criminally trespasses upon intellectual property, as it is for punishing criminally trespasses upon material property.

SECTION V.

The third proposition to be established is this: That scientists and inventors should have the same right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions, in all the other countries of the world, as in their own.

This proposition, like the preceding one, is too nearly self-evident to need much argument in its support.

The natural, and only real, right of property is the same throughout the world; and it is only the ignorance and tyranny of the different governments of the world, that make the practical right of property different in different countries.

When justice, as a science, shall be established, as the one only law, in all the countries in the world, the right of property in scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, as well as in material things, will be one and the same all over the world. [*14]

SECTION VI.

The fourth proposition to be established is this, viz: That it is the right, and for the interests, of all past discoverers and inventors (where their patents have expired), and of their heirs, to recover their natural right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions, which has hitherto been denied or withheld by the ignorant and tyrannical governments that have hitherto existed, and now exist, in the world.

This proposition, too, like the preceding ones, is too nearly self-evident to require much argument.

Plainly, scientists and inventors have never voluntarily parted with their natural right of property in their discoveries and inventions. They have never forfeited their right to them by crime. Those who have had the benefit of them, and are now using them, have never bought them, or paid for them, or made any kind of contract with the owners for the use of them. The only reason why the authors of them (or their heirs or assigns) are not now in the full enjoyment of their right of property in them, is that governments, in their ignorance or villainy, have refused either to acknowledge or protect the right at all, or to protect it beyond a limited time; and have thus practically licensed all trespassers to make free plunder of what was the rightful private property of the discoverers and inventors.

To this free plunder of their property, the discoverers and inventors have been obliged to submit, for the time being. But their true and natural right of property has not been lost, or affected, thereby. They have the same true and natural right of property in their discoveries and inventions that they ever had. And they have now the same right to demand the recognition and protection of their rights, that other men have to demand the recognition and protection of their rights to their material property.

Where the discoverers and inventors have died, their descendants have the same natural right of inheritance in their discoveries and inventions, as other men’s descendants have in the material property of their ancestors. [*15]

That the immense value of their discoveries and inventions should now unite all scientists and inventors, (whose patents have expired,) and their heirs, in the effort to recover their rights to them, is too plain to need argument.

SECTION VII.

The fifth proposition to be established is this, viz.: That it is the right, and/or the interests, of mankind at large, that the right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions, should be restored to all past discoverers and inventors, and to their heirs, so far as they can now be ascertained.

The truth of this proposition rests, in the first place, upon this basis, viz.: That it is only when all men are protected in their natural right of property in the products of their labor, that all men are stimulated to the production of the greatest amount of wealth they are capable of producing, and each and every man is consequently enabled to give the greatest amount of wealth in exchange for the wealth produced by others. It is, therefore, the right, and for the interests, of every man, who produces any kind of wealth for sale, that all other men, who are to buy his wealth, should be enabled to produce as much as possible themselves, and thus be enabled to give as much as possible in exchange for his.

Every man, who believes in men’s natural right of property in the products of their labor, will acknowledge the truth of this principle, as applicable to the future. But perhaps some will be so unwise, as well as dishonest, as to dispute the principle in its applicable to the future and will say that the world having once got possession of a vast amount of intellectual property for nothing, it would now be foolish to give it back to its true owners.

There is some difficulty in reasoning with men who do not believe that honesty is the best policy in all cases whatsoever; men who believe in theft and robbery, whenever they are strong enough to practice them with impunity. But inasmuch as there are a great many such men in the world, and inasmuch as they are [*16] now, and always have been, the ruling powers of the world - that is, the chief governors of the world and inasmuch as they arc the class who will most powerfully oppose the rights of all scientists and inventors, both past and future, it becomes necessary to show to others, if not to themselves, that this policy is as shortsighted as it is dishonest.

It has always been the policy of these bands of robbers, who have called themselves governments - in fact, it has in reality been the sole objects of their organizations, as governments - to rob all the producers of wealth, whether intellectual or manual laborers, of all the products of their labor, as fast as they were produced; leaving nothing in the hands of the producers that would enable them to produce more, or that would even enable them to produce their daily food, except as the servants, and by the permission, of these tyrants. And this is the reason - and not the want of scientific and inventive faculties - why, after so many thousands of years, there is so little of either science or invention in the world today; and why there is so little of any thing, for the mass of mankind, except poverty, ignorance, and slavery.

It is only within a very recent time - say a single century, or a little more - that any governments have secured to either scientists or inventors any really valuable rewards for their labors. And even within that time, they have only offered such mere temporary, and even trivial, rewards, as were thought sufficient to inspire their hopes, and induce them to produce something valuable, of which they could be robbed. And as soon almost as they hate produced anything valuable, they have been robbed of it. Such is to-day the state of the laws under those few governments that alone profess to secure to scientists and inventors any rewards at all for their discoveries and inventions. And this state of things is likely to continue, and is almost certain to continue, until scientists and inventors themselves undertake the work of vindicating and establishing their own natural rights of property In their discoveries and inventions.

But the scientists and inventors themselves will see at once that they cannot consistently advocate their own rights to the [*17] products of their own labor, in the future, unless they acknowledge and maintain the same rights for all past scientists and inventors, and their heirs, so far as they can now be ascertained. Every admission on their part, that all past scientists and inventors, or their heirs, may rightfully be robbed of their property, would be a. practical confession that all future scientists and inventors may also be rightfully robbed of theirs. No future scientist or inventor, therefore, can consistently claim any rights of property for himself, except such as he is willing to accord to all past scientists and inventors.

But, secondly, it would be very bad policy for either present or future scientists or inventors to make any compromise with their enemies, or to attempt to secure any rights, or purchase any favors, for themselves, by repudiating the rights of any past scientists or inventors, or their heirs. In order to establish their own rights, they will need all the influence, and all the financial capital, they can enlist in the enterprise. And the pecuniary value of past discoveries and inventions is so immense, that its power can hardly be overrated.

Estimate - if that be possible - what would be the actual market value of all the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions now extant (whose paternity can now be established), if the right of properly in them was made perpetual, all over the world!

Can any present or future scientist or inventor be so idiotic as to imagine that he is to gain anything for his particular discovery or invention, by denying, or conceding away, the rights of the real owners of all this vast property in past discoveries and inventions? Or that be can vindicate or establish his own rights more easily, without enlisting the aid of all this capital, than he can by making common cause with it?

A scientist or inventor who should seek to curry favor for his own discovery or invention, by consenting to the confiscation of all other men’s discoveries and inventions, would justly be regarded as the criminal confederate of the robbers and tyrants who now confiscate the discoveries and inventions of all other [*18] men, whose labors and products are as worthy of protection as his own.

But perhaps these remarks are unnecessary. It is certainly to be hoped, and, I think, reasonably to be expected, that there can be few so foolish, or so unjust, as to consent to the robbery of all past scientists and inventors, as a condition of having their own rights acknowledged.

The study of science tends to make men not only truthful and just, but also far-seeing; and to lift them above all temptation to practice the meannesses and crimes of those who now rule the world by laws designed to rob one class of men for the benefit of another. And scientists and inventors have now such power, and such inducements, as men never had before, to crush out all the petty, temporary, local, selfish, and criminal schemes that now occupy existing governments; and to establish the reign of justice in their stead.

But we are taking too narrow a view of this subject.

It is not true that mankind at large - or more than one third, or perhaps even a fourth, of all mankind - are in practical possession of the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions that have been made, and are now in use, in the most enlightened parts of the world - say, Western Europe and the United States. What practical knowledge of these discoveries and inventions have the seven or eight hundred millions of Asia, the two hundred millions of Africa, or the fifty or one hundred millions scattered elsewhere on the globe? Or what practical knowledge will they ever have of them, unless the discoveries and inventions themselves are carried to them, and put in use among them, &y persons from outside of these destitute countries? And who has any sufficient motive to carry them into, and put them into operation in these destitute countries, unless it &e the owners of the discoveries and inventions themselves?

The peoples of these destitute countries have, therefore, substantially the same motives for paying for the use of all these past discoveries and inventions, as they have for paying for those that are to be made in the future. That motive is to get the practical use of the discoveries and inventions, and to get it at the earliest [*19] possible time. Of what importance is the small amount they will have to pay for the use of them, compared with the benefits to be derived from them ?<fn1>

But, furthermore. The sooner these past discoveries and inventions are carried into the destitute portions of the world, and the better the use of them is paid for there, the sooner the peoples of those countries will be enabled and stimulated to produce discoveries and inventions themselves; and their discoveries and inventions will come back to us, and add to our wealth, in the same way, and, with an immaterial difference, to the same degree, as if made by ourselves.

Now, these vast countries, containing a thousand millions of people, contribute, almost literally, nothing to our wealth, or we to theirs. They are constantly so near to starvation themselves, that they have scarcely anything they can give in exchange for anything we have to offer to them. They do indeed spare us a little tea, rice, indigo, opium, jute, etc., etc. But if they were to give us one really useful invention, it would be worth more to us than all these articles together. And if they were enlightened and enriched -as they would be by our carrying our discoveries and inventions to them, and putting them in practical operation - they would then become scientists and inventors themselves; and the commerce between us, in discoveries and inventions, would be worth millions of times more, both to them and to us, than the present petty commerce in material things.

Still further. The sooner this vast foreign field is opened to our scientists and inventors, the sooner they will be enabled and stimulated to the production of the greatest possible amount of discoveries and inventions for use at home.

And since this foreign field is not at all likely to be soon opened for our scientists and inventors, unless they open it themselves, it would be as impolitic, as it would be dishonest, to deprive all past scientists and inventors, and their heirs, of all motive and [*20] all power to carry their discoveries and inventions into the destitute countries, that are perishing for the want of them.

SECTION VIII.

A few words, now, as to the prospective increase of scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, if their authors’ right of perpetual property in them should be established.

As fast as mankind at large shall become enlightened and enriched by science and invention, and by a knowledge of justice as a science, the oppressions and wars-by which, in all past time, a few men have plundered, starved, enslaved, and butchered so large a portion of their fellow men, and made all progress in knowledge and wealth impossible-will necessarily cease; because the many being enlightened and enriched, the few will then be no longer able to deceive, conspire against, and overpower them, as they hitherto have done. Mankind will, therefore, not only live out their days, and enjoy the fruits of their labor, but they will also have much greater health and strength of both body and mind, and be capable of much greater physical and mental labor than they are now. Each successive generation will also have the benefit of all the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, that shall have preceded them, and they will, of course, produce a correspondingly greater number of such discoveries and inventions themselves.

Experience shows that each new discovery and invention generally gives rise to several, oftentimes to many, others. Thus discoveries and inventions will forever go on increasing in geometrical ratio.

But even this is not all. The earth, when cultivated with the aid of such science, implements, and machinery as men are capable of producing, can probably be made to sustain a hundred times its present population. And the increase of population will naturally go on, as men increase their means of subsistence, and [*21] cease to starve and destroy each other. And this increase of population will, of itself, naturally bring a corresponding increase of scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions. Who, then, can set any limit to the future progress of mankind in knowledge and wealth?

Under the stimulus of this principle of property, mankind will soon become a very different, an almost wholly different, race of beings from what they now are. They will learn - what so few of them seem now to understand - not only that they have brains, but also what their brains were designed for, and are capable of. When these lessons shall have been learned, the knowledge that will be accumulated in consequence. will become the great wealth of the world.

SECTION IX.

It is plainly to be seen, by those who choose to see, that science and invention are bringing, and are destined to bring, all the peoples of the earth together, and show them their power to promote each others’ welfare, and their duty to live together in peace.

The only obstacle this great movement has now to meet, is that presented by ignorant, hostile, and tyrannical governments. It is plain that if all mankind are to live together in peace, and contribute their utmost to each other’s welfare, they must get rid of their existing governments, and all live under one and the same, and only one and the same, law. That one law is the law of justice. This is the one only law the world needs, or can endure. Whatever other laws (so called) are either more, less, or other than justice itself, are necessarily unjust, and are therefore to be resisted and abolished.

Whenever, in any case whatever, this one law of justice is repudiated, violence and fraud arc necessarily licensed in its stead. [*22]

But this one law of justice is a natural principle, and not any thing that any human power can make, unmake, or modify. Being a natural principle, It is a subject of science, and is to be learned like all other sciences. It is also the same in all places, and in all times; and will remain the same in all places, and among all peoples, so long as the world shall stand.

The want of this one law is the only obstacle, not only in the way of your carrying your present discoveries and inventions all over the world, but also to such a multiplication of discoveries and inventions as doubtless mankind at large-nor even the most far-seeing of them - have ever conceived of.

You, above all other men, (I repeat) have the power and the inducements to carry this law all over the world, and establish its authority in opposition to all the adverse laws and governments that now exist.

In subsequent letters, and other separate publications. If scientists and inventor shall favor me enterprise, I purpose to show that it is perfectly feasible and easy to establish, all over the world, their right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions. In fact, unless scientists and inventors can maintain their own rights of property, and establish justice in the place of such transparent conspiracies and villanies as all the principal governments of the world now are, it is plain that, instead of claiming to be the great lights and benefactors of mankind, they ought to write themselves down as imbeciles, cowards, and slaves.

NOTES

1. The probability is, I think, that if the right of property in all scientific discoveries and mechanical Inventions, past and future, were made perpetual all over the world, the discoverers and inventors themselves, and their heirs and assignes would get not more than one per cent of all the wealth created by means of them.

_____________________________________________________

One cannot imagine my shock upon reading this. If a single entrepreneur in 1884 had read this and understood it and extrapolated from it, not one of the bloody massacres of the Twentieth Century would have occurred, and political government would today be a distant memory of mankind’s most insidious and pernicious mistake. We would mark the end of the Dark Ages at 1900.

That did not happen. Lincoln had demonstrated that a powerful political government could suspend the civil liberties promised by the Bill of Rights, thus breathing life into the aspirations of future tyrants. Mercantilism dominated commerce and congress, with greed and power the driving motivations. True innovators, like Tesla and the Wright Brothers, were exploited, bankrupted, and discarded by the wealthy elite.

The odds against establishing a new paradigm for government sky-rocketed after September 11, 2001, as people willingly sacrificed what small liberty they had left to the mighty central state, as intended. Once the Internet is brought under control, there will be no more discussion of innovation in the context of government. Consequently, I’ve decided to stop pushing my books on the subject, and just give the ideas away for free. Somebody, someday, somewhere, might stumble across them, and create something new out of the ashes of this civilization.

ECONOMIC GOVERNMENT

Robert Klassen

Written in gratitude to the ideas of Ayn Rand and Andrew J. Galambos.

Recently I had a very long-winded discussion with my sister’s friend Alicia Travest on the subject of economic government. Alicia is a skeptical person who neither likes me nor trusts me, plus she is a well educated and intelligent person who enjoys asking insightful and difficult questions, so I decided that this whole conversation needed to be written down and saved for posterity. For the sake of brevity, Alicia will be A and I will be B.

A: Okay, mister, what is this? I’ve heard of economics and I’ve heard of politics and I’ve heard of political-economy, but I’ve never heard of economic government.

B: Relax. I’ll tell you about it. I coined the phrase - economic government - deliberately in order to clearly contrast it with what we have now, which I call political government.

A: Wait a minute, you made this up?

B: Yes, I put the two words side-by-side.

A: Have you got a degree in economics or political-science?

B: I haven’t got a degree in anything.

A: Then by what right …

B: The same right every person has to learn and to think and to arrive at conclusions.

A: How long have you been studying this?

B: Since I read Civil Disobedience at the age of ten in 1950.

A: Who wrote that?

B: Henry David Thoreau, in 1849. The essay begins: “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it amounts to this, which also I believe - ‘That government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”

A: So are you saying that economic government is no government at all?

B: No. Thoreau was using the word govern in the sense of rule by authority. He did not like the idea of being ruled by anybody other than himself and he refused to acknowledge the authority of the state. However, govern also means to exercise influence, which is not the same thing as ruling by threat, command, or demand. It is in this sense that I am using the word government.

A: So by attaching your use of the word to economics, you are implying that economics can somehow exercise influence over what?

B: Human behavior. The purpose of economic government is to provide absolute security and justice to individuals without the use of coercion.

A: What do you mean by coercion?

B: Any interference with property.

A: You mean force, right? So you’re going to influence human behavior without the threat of force? You’re crazier than I thought. Force is the only way to keep people in line.

B: So when you move to a job that pays twice as much, somebody forced you to do it?

A: No, no, you know what I mean.

B: You act on your self-interest, right? Nobody has to force you to do that, right?

A: So what? What about muggers and rapists and thieves and killers and all those people? What do you do with them?

B: Life will become very unpleasant for them in this system. In fact, I don’t believe they will be able to carry out a coercive act and survive. As the news gets around, I do believe this kind of behavior will become rare, indeed. In economic government, coercers will pay for their crimes.

A: I don’t like the way you said that and I definitely don’t like the grin on your face. Okay, let’s get down to business, what is this economic government of yours?

B: It consists of three interrelated human institutions that do not exist at the moment. First, and most important, is an Innovation Clearing-House, second is Banking, and third is Insurance.

A: Who are you trying to kid, here? Banking and insurance have been around forever.

B: Banking and insurance have been around in rudimentary form, but their function has never been extended as it ought to be. In fact, such extensions are most likely illegal under political government.

A: Illegal, you say? Now you’ve got me interested. Like what, for instance?

B: How about venture-capital insurance?

A: Like you bet your money on a risky venture and loose your shirt and the insurance company picks up the tab. Right?

B: Right. Then there’s marriage insurance and contract insurance and innovation insurance…

A: There you go with that innovation business again. What’s wrong with patents and copyrights?

B: Patents are expensive and difficult to get; then, if they are worth anything, even more expensive and difficult to protect. Patents also discourage innovation and competition. Copyrights are cheap and easy to get, all you have to do is write the word on the page, but are also expensive and difficult to protect. And both have time limits.

A: I suppose you have something better?

B: Yes, the Innovation Clearing-House. It begins with a simple Registry where you can list your innovation and have it time and date stamped.

A: Won’t that make it easier to steal?

B: You can encrypt it.

A: What if it’s something I create while I’m working for somebody else?

B: Then you’d better encrypt your name as well.

A: How much does it cost?

B: One cent per entry.

A: Well, that’s cheap enough, but I still don’t know why I should do it in the first place.

B: The broader function of the Clearing-House is to create a tree of knowledge to identify each individual innovator who belongs on that tree. Then the Clearing-House will accept royalties from entrepreneurs who have used those innovations to earn a profit and assign those royalties to the innovators.

A: Whoa! Wait just a hot minute here. That tree of knowledge could go back ten-thousand years!

B: Further, actually. We have the inventors of the wheel, inventors of stone tools …

A: This is ridiculous! You can’t pay people who have been dead for thousands of years.

B: You can’t pay the person, but you can create an account for that person and pay into that.

A: What on earth for? I’d like to know.

B: First, because it’s the right thing to do. If you use the knowledge that some other person created to earn a profit for yourself, then you owe that person gratitude. Second, you will build up investments that earn money that can be used for education, research and development, and public welfare. And third, it is a tool of justice.

A: Slow down, slow down. Let me examine these one at a time. Are you telling me that every mechanical engineer is going to have to learn and remember the names of thousands of people who created his profession?

B: No, not at all. If the mechanical engineer is merely contracting his time to do a certain job, then he doesn’t owe money to anybody. If he is building his own hydraulic pumps and selling them to an aerospace company at a profit, then he does. He does not need to know or remember his antecedents, the Clearing-House will take care of that.

A: I still don’t see what’s in it for him?

B: For one thing, he can advertise the fact that he pays innovation royalties, thus attracting the highest quality co-contractors to his projects. And for another, he himself will eventually earn innovation royalties as others build upon his work, even after he is dead, so participating in the Innovation Clearing-House is in his own best interest.

A: Who’s to say this Clearing-House won’t steal his money or his innovation or both?

B: That is the purpose of innovation insurance.

A: Is this Clearing-House one great enormous institution?

B: Not necessarily, there may be thousands, but they will be interrelated like the search engines and directories on the Internet are now.

A: Okay, I get the picture. Now what did you say they do with the money?

B: Invest it in profitable businesses, invest it in individuals with profitable potential, and invest it in research and development of areas which have no apparent application at the moment.

A: I can see the point of the first two, they’ll earn money on their investment, but what is the point of the third?

B: Looking back, we see a phenomenon like Maxwell’s Equations explaining something that was not known to exist, electromagnetic waves. Today the search is on for the gravitational waves that Einstein predicted. Today the search is on to find new medicines in the tropical forests. Somebody has to finance this research, which may or may not pay for itself some day. Individuals or corporations may pay for it, fine, but the Innovation Clearing-House will take a keen interest in pure research.

A: Okay, okay. Back up a little and tell me what this Clearing-House has to do with justice.

B: In addition to recording and rewarding the positive acts of individuals, the Innovation Clearing-House will also record and punish the negative acts of individuals.

A: I can’t believe you are saying this. How can you punish dead people?

B: Two ways; one, by publishing their negative act; and two, by creating a negative account in their name. Men like Stalin and Hitler would have pretty substantial negative balances.

A: What on earth for?

B: Because it’s the right thing to do and because it will have a real deterrent effect on any would-be Hitlers or Stalins in the future.

A: And you’re going to take that back in history, too?

B: Sure. The murder of Archimedes cries out for justice. We may believe that a delay of two and a third millennia makes the punishment irrelevant, but to the folks living a hundred-thousand years from now, it will appear instantaneous.

A: You think big, don’t you? Why should I care what they think in a hundred-thousand years?

B: Because, if you do anything worthwhile in the time you’ve got, they will be there to thank you. If you don’t, they won’t.

A: Is that a threat?

B: No, it’s more like a guarantee. Every political government in the history of mankind has turned its monopoly on coercion against its citizens in its attempt to enslave them, or to keep them enslaved, which ultimately destroyed not only the political government but also the civilization that supported it. I perceive history as the rise and fall of one Dark Age after another. We live on the threshold of another one, only this time the technology of coercion is so sophisticated and so powerful that only a mutated version of Homo Sapiens will survive, if any version survives. We have the technical ability to destroy all life on this planet and that technology is controlled by the wrong people.

A: Who should control it?

B: The innovators.

A: How can they?

B: They can’t, at the moment. When innovation insurance becomes available, that will become a different matter.

A: Economic government can save the human race?

B: Yes.

A: How?

B: By making the exercise of coercion nearly impossible.

A: And your Clearing-House will do this?

B: Not alone, don’t forget Insurance and Banking.

A: Okay, let’s talk about insurance.

B: Any perceived act of coercion will be reported to the victim’s insurance, which will verify the incident, then pay the victim the agreed-upon indemnity. Insurance then notifies the Clearing-House and the Bank, then seeks to recover the indemnity and damages from the perpetrator.

A: Wait a minute. What if the crook has insured himself against the risk beforehand?

B: This makes things simpler. Insurance X goes to Insurance Y, reveals the evidence against the crook and collects the indemnity and damages.

A: Hold it, what happens to the crook?

B: Well, he’s going to have a hard time buying new insurance and he’s going to have a permanent blot on his historical record.

A: There is something missing here. What if he didn’t have insurance in the first place and what if he murdered you?

B: I have insured myself against this risk, of course, so my estate is protected. The murderer can’t use the banking system any longer, the banks have frozen his accounts, so he can’t buy anything, food, shelter, clothing, heating, cooling, electricity, plumbing, transportation, nothing.

A: What if he stored up a horde of gold?

B: Gold is only worth what the market will pay for it. In a totally electronic banking and finance system, there will be little market for gold. Sellers of goods and services will not even accept it. It’s too heavy, too bulky, and the only use for it is in teeth and jewelry and electronics.

A: So you see the Banking industry going on-line?

B: Certainly. It’s only logical and it’s only a matter of time before all currencies and trading will be electronic.

A: That’s going to leave a lot of people who are not wired out in the cold.

B: Why? People learned to use credit cards easily enough, now they can learn to use debit cards. A stolen debit card won’t work for the thief.

A: So what happened to our murderer?

B: That is up to him. He can negotiate with the insurance and banking people to pay for the indemnity and damages or he can walk out into the wilderness and try to live off the land. Maybe some tribe of like-minded savages will take him in; or maybe they will eat him. In an interstellar space vehicle, that would be a life or death choice.

A: What if he saved up enough money in advance to pay for murdering you?

B: I would have to see to it in advance that murdering me would be a very expensive act. Assuming I neglected that, however, he still has his reputation to deal with. So he goes to the grocery store to buy food, sticks in his debit card, and a little amber light comes on; the grocery clerk, owner, robot, or whatever, says, I won’t sell you my food. His debit card is intact, he has money in the bank, but nobody will deal with him. He is still bound for the savages, or space, no matter what.

A: There’s got to be a loophole here, somewhere.

B: At first, there’s nothing but loopholes, but as time goes on, they will be closed, one by one. As more and more people freely buy into economic government, coercion will begin to disappear.

A: And that is your objective.

B: Yes. My objective is to put an end to coercion as viable human behavior. For further discussion see my book Economic Government at <http://www.nugvdigm.com>.

Author’s Note: I don’t have a sister.

INNOVATION CLEARING HOUSE

Robert Klassen

This essay is written with gratitude to the ideas of

Andrew J. Galambos

Alvin Lowi

Stephen J. Parker

Stephen Foerster

Simon Buckingham

Christopher Klassen

John Hilton

An Innovation Clearing House may serve several purposes:

Innovation Directory

Innovation Registry

Innovation Agency

Innovation Justice

Innovation Insurance

Innovation Arbitration

Innovation is defined in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary as 1: the introduction of something new 2: a new idea, method, or device. I am using the word in both senses of this definition.

Clearinghouse is defined in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary as 1: an establishment maintained by banks for settling mutual claims and accounts 2: a central agency for the collection, classification, and distribution esp.(sic) of information. I am using the words Clearing House in both senses of this definition.

The central, key concept of a clearinghouse for ideas is the innovation of Andrew J. Galambos, as far as I know. His intention, as I understand it, was to bring absolute justice to the innovators throughout history who made it possible for our species to survive the rigors of nature and to emerge as the dominant species on this planet. That justice consisted of finding them, naming them, thanking them, and paying them gratitude, i.e., money. This would be the function of what I am calling an Innovation Directory.

WHO PAYS: The gratitude to innovators is paid by the entrepreneur or manufacturer who produces and sells products based on that innovation. In practical terms, the entrepreneur or manufacturer would simply designate a percentage of profits, say one-one-hundredth of one percent, as gratitude and the Innovation Directory would distribute it appropriately down the tree of knowledge.

WHY PAY: Imagine the extent of human knowledge in 1650: Algebra and geometry had been recovered from the ancient Greeks; Kepler had published his Laws of Motion; Galileo had published his Law of Falling Bodies and discovered the moons of Jupiter; Descarte had introduced coordinates to mathematics. Efforts to understand how nature worked were sporadic and scattered among individuals working alone in various places in Europe. This was the Age of Kings and the Reformation and protracted wars and the Black Death dominated the lives and the attention of the people. The human condition was no different in 1650 than it had been in 300 B.C. when the extent of human knowledge was roughly the same. Human beings had been living, procreating, fighting, and dying for two-thousand years without significant change, yet a mere two-hundred years after 1650, the world of mankind was almost totally changed. What happened? The man standing at that critical juncture in time was identified by Andrew J. Galambos as Isaac Newton.

As I flip a light switch, watch television, drive through town, take my medications, or write on this computer, I think, without Newton, none of this would exist. Does mankind owe gratitude to Newton? Yes, it does.

Aside from the moral rectitude of gratitude, entrepreneurs and manufacturers have a strong proprietary motive in paying gratitude: attracting the best innovators. The competition for innovators today is fierce and it is often difficult for an innovator to know which company will meet his or her requirements the best; this will quickly help them decide.

In the ever more rapidly changing world that is coming, innovators will seldom deal with a single company for more than a single contract to build a single product and, for the most part, they won’t even leave home. All of the old industrial paradigms, including centralized locations, management, interviews, applications, meetings, commuting, paperwork, paydays, and benefits, will be out the window. A contract for a product, with a money back guarantee, will be all that’s necessary. Degrees and endorsements mean nothing in this world, achievement and reputation mean everything. So when an innovator with a good track record goes looking for a new contract, what will he or she look for, besides money? A company which pays gratitude to innovators like himself or herself.

WHO OWNS WHAT: The innovator owns his or her innovation and, therefore, the innovator owns whatever gratitude is deposited into his or her account by the Directory and may designate the use to which it is put. However, we must divide this subject into two categories, dead innovators and living innovators.

Dead innovators cannot instruct the Directory how to use their money. Thus the Directory must unilaterally decide on a use that is implied by the work that innovator accomplished, i.e., an implied contract. Newton, for example, relied on a tree of knowledge that began in ancient times called natural philosophy. He also relied on a tree of knowledge that began in ancient times called alchemy. The Directory distributes gratitude down both trees, but what do they do with the tree of alchemy after Newton? Most likely they would follow the subsequent tree called chemistry.

What does the Directory actually do with the money assigned to dead innovators? By implied contract, the Directory invests it in areas relevant to the innovator. Investments could include companies and mutual funds and could include individuals, i.e., education loans or project loans. Profits from these investments would be reinvested and wealth would accumulate.

Living innovators could have a contract with the Innovation Directory for the use of any gratitude payments. First, a critical distinction must be made: payments made in gratitude are not the same thing as payments made for the use of an innovation, such as contracted royalties from a corporation; gratitude payments might flood in from thousands of sources for the innovation of one individual while that individual may have only a few contracts with specific entrepreneurs. Since the purpose of the Innovation Directory is justice to innovators, the flow of gratitude payments is one-way. The only contract offered by the Directory to the living innovator concerns investment of money collected in his or her name.

INNOVATION REGISTRY: This is a separate service of the Innovation Clearing House offered to innovators everywhere who want to have a guaranteed record of their work. The Registry numbers and time and date stamps each entry, which may be totally encrypted by the innovator, for a fee. This verification may be critically important to the innovator at a later date as innovation proliferates at ever increasing volume and speed.

INNOVATION AGENCY: This is a separate service of the Innovation Clearing House offered to innovators everywhere who want an agent to handle their contracts and contracted royalties with a money back guarantee on their service. This service could range from writing specific contracts to investments and insurance. Many innovators simply don’t want to be bothered with such things and in the past have left these decisions to non-proprietary, that is “public”, institutions who were pleased to steal their innovations while supposedly taking care of their interests.

JUSTICE: Just as positive innovation is rewarded by the Innovation Clearing House, negative innovation is punished. This concept could be expanded beyond the creation of and use of the tools of coercion to any act of coercion whatever. This could consist of publication of the individual’s name and act plus an assignment of a financial penalty appropriate to the damage inflicted. Whether any actual money is collected is moot. Men like Hitler do not accumulate a positive balance in the Directory to compensate for the negative balance he deserves in Justice, but quantifying the damage will instruct future generations on the man’s real worth to mankind.

INSURANCE: There is no reason why any insurance company cannot guarantee the identity of an innovator, but since such insurance does not yet exist, the Innovation Clearing House can become the first one to offer it. The integrity of an entry in the Registry is already guaranteed, but an innovator may wish to further protect his or her work by purchasing additional insurance.

ARBITRATION: In the event of a dispute about the identity of an innovator and in the event that one or more of the disputants have no insurance, the Innovation Clearing House can offer an arbitration service of equal value to insurance arbitration for a fee with a money-back guarantee of impartial fairness to all parties.

DISCUSSION: My critics have raised questions that I would like to address.

WELFARE: I make no provision for “public welfare” or for “public goods.” Harry Browne describes several schemes for privatizing welfare, parks, recreation, and highways in his excellent book Why Government Doesn’t Work and there are many other sources of information on this subject, but what bothers me about this issue is that it is an issue at all. Civilization does not depend on its consumers, civilization depends on its producers. To turn this truth upside down has been the goal of all socialists since Marx. His doctrine was decried in his own day, but it rapidly became such a powerful political tool that it flourished until Ayn Rand exposed it in our time. The simple, observable truth is, socialism doesn’t work. Another observable truth is, the “public” does not exist, only individual persons living individual lives exist. My goal is to gradually remove the power of government from the hands of self-serving politicians and bureaucrats and put it into the hands of those same individual persons living individual lives and I see no reason to address the artificial fantasies of socialism at all.

MONEY: Since the gratitude paid to innovators belongs to the innovator, why can’t he or she write checks against it, borrow against it, or leave it to the kids?

The simple answer is because the Innovation Directory doesn’t offer them the option. The more complex answer lies in this example: When I sell my literature, I put aside a small percentage of my profits to be paid specifically to my antecedents’ accounts when the Innovation Directory exists; I want to pay my gratitude to Andrew J. Galambos, for example, not to his great-grandnephew in Hungary. In a thousand years or in ten-thousand years, the value of my own account in the Innovation Directory will be a measure of my own contribution to the survival of our species and I don’t want that degraded by any means.

Hypothetically, then, money goes into the Innovation Directory and never comes out; what use is that?

Money that goes into the Innovation Directory is invested in real-time industries, research and development, and education for a profit. The only money in use by mankind today is fiat political government money, it’s money because they tell us it’s money and we take their word for it because we don’t have a choice. True wealth, however, resides in innovation, goods, and services, in the production of living individuals. Gradually we can turn that production into real money by investing it in innovation, goods, and services in an institution beyond the reach of political governments; if they can’t get their hands on it, they can’t destroy it. This wealth will power future generations, not the artificial fantasies of a Federal Reserve Board.

DOMINATION: What is to prevent the Innovation Clearing House from becoming an institution of world domination, the very thing you are trying to preclude?

In promoting this paradigm I use the name in the singular to keep my presentation as simple and concise as possible. There is no reason why this kind of business cannot proliferate; the structure is similar to existing directories and search engines and the Registry may even begin in one of them. Thus we can rely in part on competition to keep any one company from dominating the business, let alone dominating the world.

As I have written elsewhere, Andrew J. Galambos said, if you find a risk, insure against it. We don’t have that kind of insurance available yet, no more than we have an Innovation Clearing House yet, but the one will grow from the other eventually.

But let’s say a madman does take over one of these businesses and hands over the latest research on nuclear weapons to the Chinese so they can promote a little practice war elsewhere on the planet, what do we do then?

First, refuse to do business with him. Second, remove all registered innovations. Third, apply sanctions and penalties through the network of other clearing houses, banks, and insurance companies. Fourth, ban the man from participation in the civilized world. That would be justice.

SUMMARY: An Innovation Clearing House will exist to bring justice to innovators, living and dead. It will concomitantly begin to build a stable financial base for future generations. It will operate in concert with institutions of banking and insurance to eliminate the use of coercion in human affairs. Let us begin.

A Note To Software Engineers

Despite my dismal prognosis for the future of mankind, I can report that an effort to create a small part of the innovation clearinghouse is in progress. There is no money in it yet, so this is strictly a speculative project. Anyone who might be interested in joining this effort, please contact me at rklassen@nugvdigm.com.

A Note To Software Engineers

Further Reading