From: Hal Finney (hal@rain.org)
Date: Mon Jan 04 1999 - 11:10:30 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker, <lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net>, writes, regarding
whether development would be slower without patents:
> But it _has_ been tested: the thousands of years of human history
> before the newfangled idea of patents were as productive and
> creative as today. Agriculture, construction, toolmaking, money,
> clothing, cooking, boats, roads, water power, and countless other
> technologies that are so commonplace we hardly think of them as
> high-tech were all invented long before patents.
On the contrary, it took thousands of years for these inventions to
be developed. The rate of advancement was far slower in the past
than it is today.
Historical tests like this are not very meaningful, because so many
variables are changing. We saw an increase in economic growth rates, from
a doubling time of 500-1000 years to one of about 100 years in the 18th
century, with a futher increase to a doubling time of 10-20 years in the
20th century. Someone who wanted to promote patents could suggest that
they played a large role in motivating this increase, and that without
patents we would be back to 500-1000 years to double our economic output.
Hal
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:02:42 MST