Property+Rights+and+Role+of+Incentives

PROPERTY RIGHTS AND ROLE OF INCENTIVES:

Property Rights are defined as: "...the exclusive authority to determine how a resource is used, whether that resource is owned by government or by individuals." (Econolib.org/library/Enc/PropertyRights.html). Property rights have been a longstanding cornerstone of a Capitalist Market Economy. Property Rights deter people from stealing published works and converting them to their on use by the way of patents, copyrights, and legal documents. Most songs, books, movies, and inventions coming out of any market economy nowadays have copyrights on them to deter others from taking what the original creators have created and using at as their own. On the other side, this gives __incentives__ to growing novelists, songwriters, and movie directors to bring out their ideas without the fear of it being stolen.

History of Property Rights:

Property Rights first came into question in the writings of Thomas Hobbes, prior to the industrial revolution in England, in which he asked: "How can anybody call anything his own?" There was no proof that anything was a man's own. He had no property, no rights to call his property his own. Hobbes thus concluded that property could truly only exist in a society run by one ruling elite, and the elite recognized that property as Hobbes' property.

However, it was John Locke who truly questioned this idea of property between the government and person, setting his view of property in his Second Treatise on Civil Government, in which civilians create a social contract with government in order to have others recognize their property and be led under orderly civil government.

John Locke's contract theory of government influenced most of Anti-British Rule sentiment in revolutionary-period America, and thus, influenced how American government was to be run. His idea that the government must recognize that private citizens do own material (e.g homes, cars) and intellectual property (e.g. music, novels, inventions) ran deep in the American idea of a Market System (Capitalism) government.



Property Rights in Action:

Property Rights extend to material items, to an extent, but when most people think of property rights, they think of music, novels, and inventions. These property rights protect people from having their intellectual property pirated, something that happens often to movies and music. Recently, a series of ads were put on radios and Television sets calling to stop pirating movies and music. Furthermore, if a person's intellectual property //is// stolen, they can take legal action against the perpetrator. However, property rights are in a gray area, and whether or not someone has pirated intellectual property. For example, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, an American band, tried to sue the Showtime Television show //Californication// on grounds that the creators of the show had taken the title of one of their songs, 'Californication', as their own. However, the creators stated that they had taken the title of the show from an Article in Time Magazine from the 1970's called "The Great Californicated West', winning the case and not having to pay the Chili Peppers.

What Property Rights Protects:

-Intellectual Property Rights -Physical Property Rights
 * Movies
 * Music
 * Novels, inventions, etc.
 * Home
 * Cars, etc.

Incentives:

Incentives are often government-created or price-related boon that benefits people willing to create intellectual property, more advance for novelists, lower tuitions for songwriters, even government pay for war-veterans who give their own lives for their country. Often, these incentives are created during a period of no 'visionaries' because creative mind's process dull due to the belief that a stable job is far better than a creative-based job. This idea increases as the world becomes more efficient. When cities grow and the need for mechanical, meaningless jobs increases, people lose sight of 'ideas' when things are so monotonous. Thus, the government provides incentives for people to create novels and music for the people, such as more monetary gain, and schools to bolster their intellectual prowess.

Link to Article:

Property Rights: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

(All property of that essay belongs to Armen A. Alchian and The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics)

Explanation of the Article:

Armen A. Alchian defines property rights as the "exclusive authority to determine how a resource is used, whether that resource is owned by government or by individuals". Basically, no one but the owner of the property can choose the way the property is used. This applies from things all the way from songs to oil in your backyard. A slight exception is a property owned by a government. Since the government is not an individual, but a collection of individuals, an agent is used to determine the use of the resource, but they must still adhere to the limitations put upon them by the government.

Property Rights gives an individual exclusive rights to the services of the property. Such as a car, one person owns the car, and can only be used with the owner's permission, otherwise it's grand theft auto. It also gives a person the right to choose who gets to use it, whether for free or by sale.

Thus, there are three elements of private property: (1.) exclusivity of rights to choose the use of a resource. (2.) exclusivity of rights to the services of a resource (3.) rights to exchange the resource at mutually agreeable terms.

Property Rights stop the unethical use of competition, in which companies and the government infringe on the resources of a private individual, and to stop piracy of intellectual property. These are not against human rights, as critics say they are. Property Rights and Human Rights are economically and essentially one in the same.

Good Videos on Property Rights: [|Intellectual Property Rights] [|Property Rights and the Fifth Amendment]

Works Cited: 1.)Alchian, Armen A. "Property Rights: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics." //Library of Economics and Liberty//. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <[]>. //2.)Property Rights and the Fifth Amerndment//. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. 3.)"Intellectual Property Rights." //www.c-spanvideo.org//. C-SPAN. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. . 4.)"Property." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <[]>.