"intellectual" "property" "rights" and Traceability.

If there are intellectual rights, analogous to real property rights, then how come there is a time limit on the right?  If I own a bicycle, it does not have a time limit, after seventeen years it does not go "open-sourced."  But ideas, under "intellectual" "property" "rights" there is a time limit on ownership.  At some point, you do not own it anymore.  This odd effect is brought about by having the legal theories underpinning the "rights" in separate categories.  Real property rights are under common law, and "intellectual" "property" "rights" are under statutory law.  The layman is confused by it all, defers to the lawyers, the lawyer knows how the scam is run.

Since "intellectual" "property" "rights" are merely a policy, just another rent-seeking scam promulgated under capitalism, it has winners and losers.  For this reason, it is constantly being fiddled with,  laws fought over, overthrown and reformed on a regular basis, fine-tuning the balance between the losers and the winners.

Now a distinction must be made among the three major "intellectual" "property" "rights".  Copyright and patents, each a unique legal regime, both have a time limit.  The other unique regime, trade marks, do not.  They are issued into perpetuity, under the charming free market ideal of use it or lose it, so in this instance it seems an exception to my criticism.

But trade marks and logos fail initially for the same reason, they are violence-back ultimately.  The best known logo in the ancient world was SPQR, now open-sourced.  Since Coca Cola and Google are incorporated, they depend on state violence for compliance, not the good will of the community. All three forms of "intellectual" "property" "rights" suffer this catastrophic error.

And there is one more difference on trademarks as an "intellectual" "property" "right."   A written book  is tangible, a machine is tangible, but the trademark is strictly an image for the purpose of identifying a particular source of a good or service.  Books and machines are will never be replaced by something better, making them irrelevant.  But traceability, they is the QR code on the product or service going back to the producer, will within a decade make the trademark pointless.  Trademarks will go undefended, although all the more abused, because the QR code will make communicate the value proposition far better and near zero cost.  Defending the trademark will be as absurd as Canute commanding the waves.

Sometime I'll try to make a list where practicing free market ethics in spite of the regime is superior to submitting to the regime.  Certainly eschewing "intellectual" "property" "rights" is a clear case where refusing to gain rights, or tactically open sourcing any rights, brings immediate and superior benefits than claiming the putative "intellectual" "property" "rights".

Another more complex area is to refuse to play the usury game.  here again, the benefits are immediate.

I bet there are plenty or these, I'll reflect, but I'd appreciate examples.


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Are Corporations Legitimate?

Nick has left a new comment on your post "Answering the Two Hesitations to Business Start-up...": 

John, you said: "the corporation is not an ethical business structure"

This intrigues me, I'd like to learn why you think this... have you any posts that speak to this point?

Thanks!

Hey Nick,

The line you cite pushed its way forward while I was writing, your citation brings it to focus.  I'll start with Drucker, who wrestled with the corporation, its role and value, his entire career.  Somewhere, long ago I read where he wrote something to the effect that he questioned where the corporation got its legitimacy.  Drucker was good that way, there is an immediate obvious answer, but the more you think about it, the more you question.

The immediate answer is "the state that issued the corporation charter."  OK, where did it gets its authority to issue charters?  Well, it's constitution under the Federal system.  OK...  where did they get their power?  Ultimately it goes back to that first corporation, the US of A. And then where did it get what powers it claims?

Next, we have shifting definitions from them to now, definitions still shifting and in debate. Our idea of a corporation today would be absurd a century ago, and two centuries a corporation was merely a definition of a project.  People formed a corporation to collect money to build a bridge, it was naturally a toll bridge, the purpose of which was to attract traffic over an easier route, good for everyone.  These were hardly thought of as "persons" in the law.  But that is where we are today.  Today as a practical matter, with no particular limits as to purpose (see Bush family Zapata corp) corporations are the vehicle for privatizing profits and socializing costs.  If you want to trace this in the history of the usa, I recommend Morton Horwitz'  The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (Studies in Legal History)



Finally, there is a business organization option that is legitimate, and every bit as useful as the corporation in achieving goals, the co-operative.  The have all of the capabilities of a corporation, but a co-op gets its legitimacy from its customers, not the state.  it is formed by people for a particular purpose, and cannot much stray.  Its losses are on its members (who are necessarily its customers) and its gains are automatically dispersed to the customer/owners. There are no classes of stock (there is no stock), so now referential treatment among members.  Now that sounds somewhat analogous to the corporation, but in a case of wrongdoing, a co-op is not served papers (it is not a corporation) the individual doing the wrongdoing is served, or all of the members.  (Co-ops do insure heavily).   With a co-op the malfeasant cannot escape responsibility, with a corporation it is pretty much assured miscreant will escape.

If the USA is a legitimate form of government, it is because it is "from the people, by the people for the people."  A co-op is exactly the same with a much smaller focus.  The USA makes claims as to its powers that are debatable, but a co-op has no need or interest in debatable claims.

And for what it is worth, co-ops tend to pay taxes, and corporations not.  Having to pay taxes, and be responsible to the community, or be tax free and not responsible, which would you choose?

The corporation as a business entity fails in practice and applicability.  It's the wrong tool for the job, and it provides for unfortunate ends.  If you need to get big, do so by customers acclaim, not because as a corporation you can issue enough debt to buy off a supreme court and transfer private property from its rightful owners to your private ends, or any one of countless other unfortunate uses of the corporation.

The solution is to deny the state its assumed power to charter corporations.

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The World Embraces Shariah-compliant Finance

One of the great anarchic institutions today is SWIFT, the worldwide voluntary convention of Society of Worldwide  Interbank Financial Telecommunications.  It is absolutely critical to the economy, and has exactly zero association with any state.  It's a club.

There is a sort of geography of Islamic finance, with various regimes adhering to various degrees of orthodoxy in Shariah compliance.  Malaysia is probably what might be described as most liberal, but in my view the whole enterprise of Shariah compliant finance is following the path to usury that Christendom trod.

In any event, to the degree that finance is Shariah compliant, and at variance from common banking practices, an addendum of rules must be adopted by SWIFT, and this has been done.  Kevin sent this in...

"Globally, the growing interest in Islamic finance as a viable alternative to conventional finance has heightened awareness of the need to adopt international standards to automate paper-based Islamic finance operations," says Kiyono Hasaka, Standards Specialist, Asia Pacific at SWIFT. "With SWIFT's growing presence in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, we are well positioned to act as an enabler to bring the financial communities together, define market practice and automate Islamic finance processes using international messaging standards."

So, in fact, the worldwide banking community is embracing Shariah-compliant financial practices as an option.

As soon as we can manage to withdraw the armed forces from the middle east, which are causing the USA to become isolated, the rest of us can start trading there, buying what we were not able to steal.

We have elections coming up in which we can vote out of office the isolationists who advocate more war, and we can end the rerun of the "greatest threat ever known" scam run on in before the Iraq invasion.    USA policy needs to catch up with SWIFT.

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I Love Hong Kong

Hong Kong's credit rating is in debate with the governance question, and the people are taking to the streets over who would be their governor.  Beijing is saying Hong Kong will select a governor from a beauty pageant stacked by Beijing.  Li Ka Shing, the Hong Kong billionaire is diversifying his way out of Hong Kong.  Is this the beginning of the end?

No way.  Hong Kong is China's most reliable city, safest and most productive.  Li Ka Shing is a billionaire because at the time of the last riots, circa 1967,  this plastic flower maven bet that Hong Kong was not over and doubled down while the rich were getting out.  Today Li Ka Shing is the "rich getting out" and some hard, young Hakka businessman is doubling down on Hong Kong, praying for a S&P downgrade so his investments make all the more.

As to China offering a beauty pageant of politicians from which all Hong Kong can pick, England gave the people of Hong Kong no choice whatsoever for 250 years, and Hong Kong exceeded the UK on all measures.  Occupy Central is a very good thing, because people need to demonstrate their love for freedom or lose it, as in the USA.  Where we lost it.

I love Hong Kong because it was started at the same time as the USA, by the same heirs of freedom, both as a historical accident, and both were to remain small entities (hence 13 original colonies.)  Hamilton and his crew hijacked the confederation and engineered the deeply flawed constitution, and it was downhill for the USA from there.  When I am in Hong Kong, I am in what the USA ought to have been in 2014.  Among other things, private companies issue the currency.  They know what money is in Hong Kong.  In USA, we have agreed to lie to ourselves, since pretty much only the poor are hurt by the lying.

Another facet upon which I will bloviate is the problem of real property rights, meaning land ownership.  Such a problem in USA.  So much land, and already occupied.  (There is that word again.)  That would imply property rights.  How to handle it?  At first, when our numbers were small, we negotiated.  Later, with bigger numbers, and a capitalist regime, we murdered.

Now in Hong Kong, all arrivals found the land already occupied.  But by the King of England or the Manchu.  People tend to negotiate with the King of England rather than murder for a piece of land.  So for the 250 years of pre-China retention, no one could own land in Hong Kong.  Yet it grew to a premier city-state.  Nothing is new under the ChiComs, no one can own land (one exception, the Church of England owns a spread that the Chinese acknowledge.  Go figure.) And yet, some 3 of the top ten billionaires in Hong Kong made their money in real estate.  99 year leases, property development.

Imagine what we might have accomplished if we respected the Indians rights, and worked within what is ethical?  I know USA is just a corporation, but it is a corporation run by people, and people can decide to do the ethical thing.

A little existential tension makes for good when the comity is good.  I say the smart money is on Hong Kong.  What Beijing proposes is an improvement over what the Brits offered.  And always remember, USA is a democracy.  Do the people of Hong Kong really want to end up like us?

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Anarchy In Action - Argentina Event

In anarchy, you are the cop.  The collective response to your actions by your community is necessary and sufficient to maintain law and order and peace and prosperity.  Israel had this for some 400 years, Iceland some 200, Belgium just did nearly two years without a government.  But more importantly, that vast majority of anyone's interactions in life have no government oversight.  It is theatre.

Most of the time your mal-behaviour can get you shunned by people you care about, or worse, killed by someone you crossed badly, so anarchy does have a retribution scheme, pitch perfect to the crime, since each person decides their own response to your wrongdoing.  Given revenge killings etc, the bible provided a limit to responses for the Israel community in anarchy.

On the other hand, with the state, we have elaborate processes that result in nothing useful anyway.  In the case of serial-defaulter Argentina, big money folks lent them money (again) and then some vulture funders held out for full repayment after yet another default and haircut.  This Argentina problem went all the way to the US Supreme court.  Now, any sovereign nation that puts its financial disposition at the feet of foreign government entity is simply not serious about ever paying the debt back.  Anyone who read that proviso should have taken this as prima facie malintent.  Who does that?

Sure enough, a case went to the USA Supremes, and Argentina lost.  Now Argentina is ignoring the USA courts and working out a deal through France.  So ultimately, what Argentina suffers for their peccadillo gets down to what their playmates on the world stage decide they will suffer.  No US Supreme Court needed.  The world community of financiers are keen to sort this out, so Argentina can clear its books and start borrowing again.

What we have with government is chaos, and with anarchy peace and prosperity.  (The state fears the peace and prosperity of anarchy, so it uses the definition of chaos and calls anarchists nihilists.  But in the academy, anarchy is still properly used - anarchy = no + king.)  Time to move beyond the chaos.

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CalPoly SLO International Trade Start-up Seminar

Exactly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles on 101 is the lovely town of San Luis Obsipo, home of CalPoly.  I'll be teaching and all day seminar on importing start-up as a small business there on Oct 11.  Driving time for either city is about 3 and a half hours, so you can either get up early or make a weekend of it in the delightful Autumn still-warm air.  I just got notice the class is filling quickly, so enroll early here.

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Answering the Two Hesitations to Business Start-up

Probably a decade ago I surveyed my 1000 or so listserv members on how come people do not start up businesses, given the know-how to do so.

Now, a good portion of my seminar participants have always been the already employed, looking for an alternative.  Early on I realized, and even mention it in my book, the flight attendant with all of the advantages in the world someone does not launch a business.  How come?  Busy working!  Dentists, truck drivers, bank tellers, you name it, the employed have security and routine, and routine is important.  For this reason I'd advised kill your TV, take the 24 hours per week devoted to TV (remember those?) and work on your biz in the same time slot.  But even then, the underlying fears emerged. The answer as to "how come no go" got down to two parts in essence: funding and health insurance.

I suppose I can argue all I want that no one needs funds to start-up, only customers, but the fact is people see funding as extremely unlikely, and if their mind runs to contemporary banking, they are probably right.  No bank is going to fund anything that is not necessarily predatory.  The bank wants you to bring them an edge.

As to the health care thing, the mind boggles at the effectiveness of social conditioning.  Without health care insurance, all is lost.  Why would anyone think that?  But almost everyone does.  I recall when almost no one had health insurance, but of course the care was better and you could afford it with your own money.  But attitudes have changed, and prices have gone up, at least because of "insurance."

But now an effective response to each problem has emerged, thus wiping away major reasons for hesitation in starting up a business.

1. Health care.  A couple of evangelical groups have revived an ancient health care support scheme that is Romney/Obamacare exempt.  http://samaritanministries.org/  and http://mychristiancare.org/Medi-Share/  .  For each of these you have to affirm a faith statement and a lifestyle affirmation.  In essence both of these are narrowing the risk pool to clean living protestants and passing the savings on to the members.  And it is not insurance, it is co-op in which you commit to send in money each month and it is directed to the co-op members who have medical bills.  Expect monthly costs of $300 vs $1700. Now I found and could not affirm their faith statement, and junkies and homosexuals need not apply, but that is not the point (live with freedom of association).  Study the structure and form one for your community, and escape the horrors of Romney/Obamacare.  (I have a .pdf on tontines, and ancient insurance practice, that may be instructive as well, email me for a copy.)

2. Funding.  What if your business never had to get a loan approval from a banker? What if, as all major religions ethical systems teach, a loan is always a charitable event, and never a business event? That is to say, money is loaned at no interest to a member of the community who will endeavor to pay it back over time.  Never happen?  In a case of Deus ex machina https://www.communitysourcedcapital.com/  offers exactly that.  You still need customers first, but you'll never hope for loan approval from a banker, you loan gets funded by interested parties.  Now I know I just mentioned https://www.communitysourcedcapital.com/ yesterday, but in another context, and I want to add this - since the corporation is not an ethical business structure, the co-op, which is, is uniquely structured to accept the loans from its customers which are its owners.  The mind boggles!

You need to shift your definition of wealth from how much you can personally accumulate to the range of products and services the widest range of people can afford with their own money (which of course includes you.)  Comity vs polity, access vs credit score, prosperity vs aggression.

You cannot spot these emerging good things unless your weltanshauung might include them.  think differently.

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UCBerkeley Extension Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management

UCBerkeley Extension offers certificates in many disciplines.  One such certificate is for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management.  The certificate has five required courses and demands at least one elective for completion.  As to electives, there is this proviso...

ElectivesYou may choose any UC Berkeley Extension course offered in Business and Management to be taken for elective credit, but you must first check with the department for approval.

The department has informed me my course is approved as an elective, so the certificate may be had with a distinct international flavor, in my UC Berkeley Extension seminar.  Next seminar is November 17th, and a UCBerkeley certificate is to be esteemed by one and all.

UCBerkeley Extension qualifies for most business educational benefit programs, so check out having your employer foot the tab, including travel to San Francisco since this is the only place I teach this course live.  Otherwise get here on your own, the past students rate it highly.




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Definition of Money

A business associate of mine and I were debating the meaning of money, and the curious phenomenon of the modern field dealing with money, economics, has no agreed upon definition of money.

There is a traditional definition of money, as in medium of exchange and (relative) store of value, and then empirical examples of what has served as money, but today, the word as used in modern economics is essentially meaningless, when used in modern economic discussions.

I insist on using the word in a strictly traditional sense, so what I may say might make sense (Socrates said first, define terms.)

He countered meanings change, and so it is with the word money.  Very true, for example I heard John Wayne say in a movie from the fifties "I feel gay" which today means only one thing, but back then always meant felicitous.  Sometime around 1968 the term began to shift from felicitous to homosexual. The change is complete, contemporary use of the word causes no confusion.

But as to the word money, there is the traditional definition, still being used sometimes, and then legion other definitions, leading to endless confusions.  The new application of the word is too compromised to be useful, and the classic definition is still accepted if stipulated.  (Stipulating you mean felicitous when using the word gay would be a gag line today.)

So money retains its original definition, although stipulation may be needed...  here I use it in its traditional sense, and you can search my blog for the term and find my comments.

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Larry King Claims Faith In Usurers

In an odd twist, predatory lending spokesperson Larry King explains his surprise at 100% interest rates like this:

King, 80, said he didn’t look up the rates that borrowers pay for loans they find through LendVantage. “When you’re a spokesman, you have to have some faith,” he says.

Faith?  You mean that theological virtue?  The talk show maven keeps talking....

King likewise says it’s up to business owners to assess whether the costs of loans makes sense. “I don’t like usurious interest rates, but if I need the money, and you tell me what the rates are and you’re honest about it, I don’t have a problem with that.”

Hang on, loans are charitable events (unless purposely a form of assault) according to King's faith, one in which is his well versed.  The very fact someone considers a downward spiral loan means they are not thinking right, and of whom should not be taken advantage.  Instead of taking advantage of someone in a jam, how about simply repeating "You are not short money, you are short customers.  Fix the customer problem, and the money will sort out itself."  Light a candle, Larry.

He says businesses have had a tough time getting bank loans since the financial crisis and calls LendVantage a good solution, especially for companies that need cash fast.

"Need cash fast" is a problem fast cash will not solve. And, yes, capitalism is failing miserably (with emphasis on miser) but as to bank loans as charity, as of today, this bank has fully funded every application for non-usury loans (no interest).  

https://www.communitysourcedcapital.com/

(Today is Aug 31, 2014, and a new round of loans may come up soon.)  Larry, instead of covering usury, which you know to be wrong in your faith, with situational ethics and lifeboat legalism, why not just say how come you a fronting LendVantage?

He declined to say how much he was paid for the LendVantage commercials.

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Honor Labor - Austrian School

In my youth in a family of academics arguments over politics was endemic, and I tended toward what my mother called the "wobbly" position.  Not wobbly as in unbalanced, but IWW, the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement, Industrial Workers of the World.  To this day they make a wholesome case, as opposed to house unions (mostly government unions) and the business unions, which sold out to the powers that be.

We strive to build unions based on the direct strength of workers on the job, without regard to government or employer 'recognition.' It also refers to a strategy that eschews traditional contracts as our end goal. Instead we seek to win gains and build power through direct action tactics, rejecting concessionary bargaining and the prevalent 'no-strike' and 'management rights' clauses most traditional trade unions are all too willing to accept.

The IWW professes to neither endorse any party nor be "anti-politics" but truly independent.  But that in itself is anti-fascism, since fascism thrives on parties and political participation.  Being anarchist is necessarily anti-fascism, and thus the term anarchy has been dysphemized by the powers that be.

IWW is not well known because they don't join in (get co-opted).  This is good because their time will come when the roots matter (radical) to re-grow what is good.  They had spectacular successes early on when they used violence, but that proved passing glory, and that is regrettable, but seemed to have learned there lesson. (It seems to be attracting some young nihilists advocating violence, but these people typically turn out to be cops.) Any union movement targeted for destruction by both communism and capitalism cannot be all bad.

The Austrian School and its "anarcho-capitalist" strain denounce unions for using government power to extort concessions.  Fair enough, but what then about the IWW?

The unions began to form in response to capitalism as a set of patterns and practices being settled in law, patterns and practices funded by usury.  Capitalism, and its apotheosis, fascism, is anti-human, and those who tended to get ground up in both industry and war organized to resist.

Trade unionism is not about wages, it is about conditions and justice, ends contrary to fascism.  If trade unionism is not essentially anti-fascist in results, if not word, then it is not trade unionism, but capitulation.

Self-employment is necessarily unionism, since it depends on solidarity and mutual benefit with vendors and customers.  Union labor is self-employment as well, the company does not own the worker.  In the measure it is voluntary association, something the capitalism has ended by state laws, employment can be anarcho-syndicalist.

So this Labor Day we need to all Honor Labor, and hail the IWW for keeping anti-fascism alive in spite of overwhelming odds.  This may be a union the Austrians can love.

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The CDC, Autism and Whistleblowing

Now here is a troubling bit of theatre, an anti-autism group has reported on CDC mischief, and has rather credible evidence, naming names.  Nothing special there, although human drug trials can be criminal, all drug trials done without consent are criminal in USA.  Except by executive order, when the president can legalize a company running trials on people without their permission.  All human safety laws in USA are trumped by an exception by executive order.

Time magazine and others are reporting on this controversy, and here is the controversial video.


I have a bit of a problem with the mention of whistleblower.  The video starts out making a false claim, "CDC Whistleblower revealed."  Well, in fact, the "whistleblower" is not named.  It is like all of these people who come out 25 years later after some official crime, and when safely in retirement tell us that some crime was committed. McNamara is the poster boy of this ethic.  Unless someone is willing to stand-and-deliver, then shut up about it.  If this is true, whoever is "so sorry..." is not sorry enough to stand up like a man and say what he did when he did it.  No one goes to jail for these crimes, so he is not at risk of that, what is left at risk is retaliation in which he would lose he pension.  And there is exactly why criminality can flourish, because the people with some conscious get conscious trumped by the god ka-ching. Also, this half-way expose leaves controversy which ultimately serves the bad guys.

The video opens with the CDC run Tuskegee Experiments, and has the surprising data showing the autism rates impact people of African ancestry disproportionately.  Well, that is USA.  People of African ancestry are the despised class (every country has at least one, because like a national airline, you are not really a country without one).  Abortion rates among people of African heritage run about 30% on average, 60% in some places.  A disease uniquely African-american is sickle cell anemia, which rather goes begging for research dollars.  I see nothing good in patents, and I smell a rat when we Americans take out a patent on ebola, and the ebola breaks out in Africa, where we can save the day.

Just as it was in 1974 that at the same time USA declared "food as a weapon" there were policy guidelines issued and kept secret until 1992, in which our Sec State outlined that controlling food would control the world, so we may find in 20 years a similar directive in which we control the world by controlling medicine.  Sine the GMO thing is on the ropes, time for Monsanto to get into ebola drugs? Time to move to more subtle means?

But back to the CDC targeting people of African ancestry.  The fact that no one will step forward and say "I did this, I have first hand knowledge of that" means no one will take responsibility.  C'est la vie. My main objection is I am denied the good of the competition of people of African ancestry in the measure they are the playthings of the oppressors, and thus denied the opportunity of participation under the progressives.  Our economy needs as much competition as it can get.

The tool around which all of this mischief is organized and supported, the command and control, is the usury regime.  Get rid of this, and no one can concentrate the power to advance their pusillanimous evil ends.

Here is a billion dollar business.  Set up an office in Hong Kong in which US Citizens can upload their medical histories.  In USA medical history revelation will get you jailed, it is super secret, not for confidentiality, but because results sometimes reveal intentions.  All of these scandals could be easily spotted early on with pure science.  As the Hong Kong company received more and more medical histories, the data would highlight mischief afoot.  Other scientists around the world could come up with alternative therapies and counteract, in any event the data itself would be golden. Gather the numbers for free, crunch the data, and sell the reports.  Billions there, but illegal here.

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