Guest posting of Thoughts on Ownership
by a "Nebraska Business Owner":
by a "Nebraska Business Owner":
"The review of the articles that you cite gave me the initial thought that
they come from a “collectivist” or somewhat socialist view of life. My
view is that this philosophy as a standard does not work. When one is
expected to contribute for the benefit of all first it seems to always
come down to “redistribution of wealth” where the incentives and drive
for the individual are most always lessened.
How would an inventor do if he knew that first and foremost his work rewards have to be divided amongst the community? He doesn’t obtain “ownership” of whatever he produces? Therefore without control does he really benefit from all of his efforts???
This doesn’t mean that the community doesn’t need to benefit. The inventor’s product provides a good or service that is valuable or the inventor will gain nothing from his work anyway.
Although “ownership” should maybe not be a primary goal in itself, the value of the “strive for ownership” brings the rewards to those that work the hardest either intellectually, physically or to those that take the necessary economic risk. Without the ability to “own” for individual long term benefits or even to “own” the “prestige from accomplishment” it dilutes the incentive to try.
In the real estate world I can relate time and again where a property has tenants that don’t take care of the property, pay rents late, and generally do nothing for the community. However if you sell the property to them as a Lease/Purchase where their rents apply to the future ownership all problems go away. The property is now theirs and they have pride in that “ownership”.
What is the first thing that communist countries do when they start moving toward more of a free market capitalism? They allow private ownership of homes and little businesses. In some of these countries they had collective farms producing food for the populations. They quickly found that more food was produced for the market by the new small farmer owned plots than the large collective enterprises. What changed? The concept of “ownership” and the reward for the work given was individualized.
I am not as familiar with the internet world that you mention and the question whether potential patents and copyright laws need changing. However I don’t think there is a difference. The programmers or innovators need to be compensated for their hard work or brilliance. There needs to be some method to allow a little more time for the developer or the company to reap the rewards so that good quality innovative software and hardware is available that offsets the cost of time and money to develop. In the computer world everything happens so fast that one great product quickly gets copied and improved, sometimes maybe before those people that got it started can gain some needed rewards so they will continue to stimulate their minds for more innovations.
This doesn’t preclude cooperative work. I work in a real estate environment where every other month I attend national marketing sessions for the Society of Exchange Counselors. We have brain storming sessions to improve formulas and generate new ideas that the real estate market is presenting each of us with. We share these ideas freely in this forum which might be considered “Crowd Sourcing” or “freeware” in the computer world. Sometimes everyone develops new ideas with little expectation of immediate gain. Our environment is one of a group of folks who come together regularly and any new ideas are taken freely but with the expectation that when the idea person later has a problem others will “give back”.
It is my opinion that if society has as its goal to devalue or discourage ownership that would be not healthy long term as a policy. We do know that ownership isn’t always good in every situation. The previous USA administrations pushed home ownership so heavily that it led to people being allowed to buy houses with no ability to pay. This was underwritten by Fannymae and Freddymac which now have taxpayer guaranteed bad loans which are a big problem which Wall Street passed on to the world as derivatives. The problem here is that the free market value of ownership was manipulated for political reasons. The free market didn’t cause this problem, government did.
I believe that the concept of “ownership” and its perceived value are very important to the health of a country or economy."
How would an inventor do if he knew that first and foremost his work rewards have to be divided amongst the community? He doesn’t obtain “ownership” of whatever he produces? Therefore without control does he really benefit from all of his efforts???
This doesn’t mean that the community doesn’t need to benefit. The inventor’s product provides a good or service that is valuable or the inventor will gain nothing from his work anyway.
Although “ownership” should maybe not be a primary goal in itself, the value of the “strive for ownership” brings the rewards to those that work the hardest either intellectually, physically or to those that take the necessary economic risk. Without the ability to “own” for individual long term benefits or even to “own” the “prestige from accomplishment” it dilutes the incentive to try.
In the real estate world I can relate time and again where a property has tenants that don’t take care of the property, pay rents late, and generally do nothing for the community. However if you sell the property to them as a Lease/Purchase where their rents apply to the future ownership all problems go away. The property is now theirs and they have pride in that “ownership”.
What is the first thing that communist countries do when they start moving toward more of a free market capitalism? They allow private ownership of homes and little businesses. In some of these countries they had collective farms producing food for the populations. They quickly found that more food was produced for the market by the new small farmer owned plots than the large collective enterprises. What changed? The concept of “ownership” and the reward for the work given was individualized.
I am not as familiar with the internet world that you mention and the question whether potential patents and copyright laws need changing. However I don’t think there is a difference. The programmers or innovators need to be compensated for their hard work or brilliance. There needs to be some method to allow a little more time for the developer or the company to reap the rewards so that good quality innovative software and hardware is available that offsets the cost of time and money to develop. In the computer world everything happens so fast that one great product quickly gets copied and improved, sometimes maybe before those people that got it started can gain some needed rewards so they will continue to stimulate their minds for more innovations.
This doesn’t preclude cooperative work. I work in a real estate environment where every other month I attend national marketing sessions for the Society of Exchange Counselors. We have brain storming sessions to improve formulas and generate new ideas that the real estate market is presenting each of us with. We share these ideas freely in this forum which might be considered “Crowd Sourcing” or “freeware” in the computer world. Sometimes everyone develops new ideas with little expectation of immediate gain. Our environment is one of a group of folks who come together regularly and any new ideas are taken freely but with the expectation that when the idea person later has a problem others will “give back”.
It is my opinion that if society has as its goal to devalue or discourage ownership that would be not healthy long term as a policy. We do know that ownership isn’t always good in every situation. The previous USA administrations pushed home ownership so heavily that it led to people being allowed to buy houses with no ability to pay. This was underwritten by Fannymae and Freddymac which now have taxpayer guaranteed bad loans which are a big problem which Wall Street passed on to the world as derivatives. The problem here is that the free market value of ownership was manipulated for political reasons. The free market didn’t cause this problem, government did.
I believe that the concept of “ownership” and its perceived value are very important to the health of a country or economy."
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