2004–01–18

Intellectual property and trade

Over at Wired Lawrence Lessig has some interesting thoughts on piracy:

When America was poor, its citizens “stole.” We took the intellectual property of Dickens and other foreign artists without paying for it. We didn’t call it stealing, but they did. We called it a sensible way for a developing nation to develop. Eventually, we saw it was better to protect their rights as well as ours - better because we had rights to protect elsewhere, too. But we only imposed this burden on ourselves when it made sense to do so. Until 1891, we were a pirate nation.

He goes on to suggest that developing nations could be effective if they work together against the U.S. I agree. I’d also suggest that the term free trade be dropped and fair trade become the goal and discussion. We need to reorganize the world economy with a goal of meeting human needs fairly with justice as the base. Screw the agenda of transnational capital… a world created upon the plans and desires of multinational corporations is not a world I want to live in.

I’ve also suggested that this need for nations to band together also applies to the larger scope of world relations, not just trade. The U.S. has increasingly become a rogue nation. It’s past time that the nations of the world act to subdue our arrogance and detrimental behavior. The citizens of the U.S. have given up control of a government which is now accountable to an elite group. This is a problem that will not be solved by elections.