Recommended podcasts:
“The Global Rise of the Informal Economy,” Slate’s The Afterword (Dec. 31, 2011): an interview with Robert Neuwirth, author of Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy, who argues that “one-half the world’s workers—close to 1.8 billion people—are involved in the informal economy in jobs that are ‘neither registered nor regulated, getting paid in cash, and, most often, avoiding income taxes.’ In researching his book, Neuwirth traveled the world, visiting markets and street vendors in Nigeria, China, Paraguay, Brazil, and around the United States.”- “Tech News Today 418: The Facts About SOPA And PIPA,” Jan. 18, 2012;
- [citation needed] from SOPA, PROTECT IP Advocates, Cato Daily Podcast (Jan. 18, 2012), featuring Julian Sanchez. Good interview even though Sanchez seems to concede that piracy is a problem and a “criminal” activity.
Stephan is an attorney and libertarian writer in Houston, Director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF), and the founder and editor of Libertarian Papers. His most recent book is Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, with Jörg Guido Hülsmann; Mises Institute, 2009).
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
i wouldnt listen to this if you are easily irritated by economic illiteracy or are an anarchist. the interview is like two social-democrats tip toeing around the concept of markets with their eyes closed.
i know im demanding too much when i expect everyone in the world to be an anarchist but sometimes it makes you want to scream when the answer is right there in front of them
I hear you, but the author is not nearly as bad as the interviewer. He seems “meh” about IP infringment (he even says he woudl not mind if nigerians pirated his book), and much better than the average liberal. Anyway you have to ignore that, to take the empirical facts and analysis and incorporate them into our superior analytical framework.
For better or worse, I have not yet been granted unilateral power to rewrite U.S. criminal law…
Julian, I know this. But you seemed to leave wiggle room. You intimated it’s a good idea to fight this by shutting off funds for people who do “criminal” things on sites. Suppose the crime was, say, professing one’s faith, or objecting to a current war? I would not say the right remedy is to cut off funds for these criminal activities. I would make it clear that I don’t think these things should be criminal.
I think my assumption that you do not think copyright should be abolished is unwarranted. You could have clarified it in your reply, but instead, you said that you don’t control Congress, something we all know already. Do you think copyright is illegitimate and should be abolished?