Neoliberals have never been unanimous or doctrinaire supporters of intellectual property rights.

Evidence

Aggressive IP rights are often assumed to be one feature of the global neoliberal regime snapping into place since the 1970s. According to the dominant reading, because property rights are central to neoliberalism, then IP rights must be too. Yet, as this chapter shows, neoliberals themselves have been far from unanimous on the question of when, how, and even if ideas can be treated as property. If neoliberalism is synonymous with hardline intellectual property rights, what to make of the signatures of MPS members Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Ronald Coase on a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the Copyright Extension Act of 1998? How to explain the fact that Richard Posner, the leading figure of the Law and Economics movement and a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society, has not only suggested that there are “too many patents in America” but cites Hayek in his authoritative work on IP law to the effect that “a slavish application of the concept of property as it has been developed for material things has done a great deal to foster the growth of monopoly and … here drastic reforms may be required if competition is to be made to work”? The text is not marginal—it comes from one of Hayek’s addresses at the founding MPS meeting in 1947. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 165

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader fracturing-neoliberalism thesis of this book and Mirowski’s work on MPS internal debates. — connects to: IP enclosure proceeded without consulting neoliberal knowledge-economy theorists. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 200; Neoliberal support for IP rights was contingent on competitive-order goals, not reflexive. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 166
• SHARE: Hayek at the 1947 founding MPS meeting already warned against extending property concepts to ideas — worth sending to anyone studying IP law or law and economics.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal support for IP rights was contingent on competitive-order goals, not reflexive. #expands (0.90) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 166
• IP enclosure proceeded without consulting neoliberal knowledge-economy theorists. #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 200