Early MPS theorists held that IP rights artificially create scarcity

Evidence

The first of these is Arnold Plant, Hayek’s close friend and colleague and a founding member of the MPS. Plant, who began his career at the University of Cape Town (alongside later MPS member William H. Hutt from 1928) before moving to the LSE in 1930, later credited conversations with Hayek for influencing his own theories of intellectual property law. Lionel Robbins, a colleague of Plant and Hayek at the LSE, offered the most lasting twentieth-century definition of economics in 1932 when he said that it was “the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” An idea, once thought, or knowledge once discovered, was no longer scarce. In two articles on copyrights and patents from 1934, Plant made what has now become a standard argument that ideas are not like other property. Rather, they are non-rivalrous and nonexcludable. As he pointed out, property rights in ideas created scarcity artificially through statute law and thus resembled monopolies. Present-day libertarians continue to appeal to Plant to criticize IP rights. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 177

Categorization

• DEFINE: Plants distinction - ideas are non-rivalrous and nonexcludable - gives precise definitional content for what makes IP unlike other property.
• XREF: Connects to debates about IP law and liberty that surface in discussions of Apple vs Samsung and creative commons. — connects to: Early MPS neoliberals favored weaker patent rights over stronger ones — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 183; MPS research argued patents obstruct economic development in poorer countries — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 184; Securing competitive order sometimes led neoliberals to oppose property rights in ideas — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 166 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Securing competitive order sometimes led neoliberals to oppose property rights in ideas #corroborates (0.95) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 166
• Early MPS neoliberals favored weaker patent rights over stronger ones #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 183
• MPS research argued patents obstruct economic development in poorer countries #expands (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 184
• Early MPS economists argued competition, not patents, incentivizes innovation. #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 183
• Neoliberal economists were not united behind aggressive intellectual property rights #expands (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 165